#they find stuff n just hold it and offer it to him... loot get.

[salvenged]

‘ thanks for the advice. ’ -- for Xerox let's go bby

𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙼𝙿𝚃.   ( accepting. )

❛   𝙾𝙷 !   ...   ❜         well,   that   was   new!

it   wasn’t   often   they   were   thanked   for   their   advice   or   any   help.   certainly   it   was   their   job   to   protect   the   innocent,   and   they   would   do   so   no   matter   what!   but,   it   did   feel   nice,   to   be   acknowledged.   to   be   helpful.   to   be   𝚂𝙴𝙴𝙽   rather   than   looked   through.   for   a   faint   moment   something   familiar   glints   in   their   eyes   and   the   odd   little   smile   grows   into   a   full   blown   grin.

...   𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚈   𝙷𝙾𝙿𝙴   𝚃𝙷𝙸𝚂   𝙸𝚂𝙽’𝚃   𝙰𝙽𝙾𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁   𝙹𝙾𝙺𝙴   𝙰𝚃   𝚃𝙷𝙴𝙸𝚁   𝙴𝚇𝙿𝙴𝙽𝚂𝙴.

it’s   been   so   long   that,   admittedly,   they   had   forgotten   how   to   snark   with   the   best   of   them.   but   he   certainly   seems   genuine.   perhaps   it   had   been   a   long   time   since   he’s   had   someone’s   company   as   well.

❛   𝙰𝙷   ...   it’s   no   problem.   I   can   also   boost   you   in   battle   anytime   you   need   it!   ❜

better   to   end   the   interaction   now   before   they   unsettle   him.   after   all,   it   wasn’t   lost   on   them   how   inhuman   and   unpleasant   they   were   to   look   at.   without   another   word   they   fall   to   their   silent   monitoring   of   the   area.

[griffintail]

I’ll set the scene, cause I feel like this needs a lil explaination, but imagine this:

One of the The Parent Gang (this is how I refer to the characters you’ve written all the wonderful parental stuff about) is wandering around an area they’re unfamiliar with, mainly just lookin to get some new resources or find a decent mine, when they stumble upon a water well in the middle of an empty field. The first thing off about this is there isn’t a village around for MILES, secondly the well is completely dry and empty, and third of all when they look into the well (which goes down pretty deep compared to the usual village wells), they see a CHILD at the bottom of it. The kid’s clearly malnourished, clothes in rags, dark circles under their tiny eyes, and when they see the Parental Gang member everything about the child brightens up; whoops, guess who’s gonna be a dad~!

- from, an Anon Who’s Trapped in Their Own Love of the Found Family Trope and Never Wants to Leave❤️❤️❤️

Yeah, I love those tropes. I love any child reader tropes though! XD

Wilbur is also my favorite thus, I picked him from the gang!

Well Met

Pairing: Parental! Wilbur x Child! F! Reader

Warnings: Mentions of malnourishment, Implied Mistreatment, It’s light angst that rapidly turns into fluff

        Wilbur was hoping to find a place to loot to get a few bits of equipment for L’Manberg. Maybe he could even find a village that would like to trade for a few bits of good gear to keep in case of emergency. He really didn’t mean to wander so far out though.

        “I should have brought a horse.” He muttered as he put his hands on his hips, looking up at the sun at the highest point in the sky.

        He needed to head back if he wanted to get home before the night struck. Looking around, he hoped he could find something that would be a good enough landmark to remind him where he stopped when he came back out with a horse. Instead, he squinted thinking his eyes were playing tricks on him.

        In the middle of the spruce forest, there was a well that Wilbur would usually see in a village, but there wasn’t one for miles, hence his search. Taking another quick look at his surroundings, he went over to the well. It was an older well, moss growing along the sides and a severed rope where the bucket would hang. He heard no water, so, he looked down, nearly falling in as he startled seeing something that was most certainly not water.

        He stared in surprise as he looked at the small figure of what he could only assume was a child. As they looked up at him, he had to restrain himself from just jumping down the well. Big, innocent (E/C) eyes met his, looking so dull for a moment with bags under them before they sparkled with hope. When she, Wilbur assumed looking at them, looked up at them, he saw the rags she wore and how tiny she was. She opened her mouth but only a cough left her lips.

        “Relax.” He quickly told her as she whimpered at the pain the cough brought her. “I know you’re here. I’m going to get you out as soon as I can. Just give me a moment.”

        Desperately, he dug through his bag and breathed a sigh of relief that he did pack rope in case he found any sort of temple.

        “Alright, darling.” He talked to her to keep her calm while he tied the rope to the nearest tree, not trusting the possible rooting well wood. “I’m going to come down and get you. We’ll see what to do when I get you up but we’re going to do this one step at a time.”

        He gave a hard tug to the rope and it held. Carefully, he tossed it down and he felt so much relief that it ended close enough at the bottom for him to get down.

        “I’m coming love.” He told her as he climbed in.

        Scaling down the wall, he tried to think how this poor small child got in this situation. If someone left her there, he would not rest until he found those people. But one situation at a time.

        He hit the floor and he saw how skinny the poor girl was. Not a drop of water was on the floor so he could only assume she was dehydrated as well after that violent cough. Carefully, he crouched in front of her, giving her a gentle smile. She couldn’t be any more than six as well and it made anger grow in the back of Wilbur’s head.

        “Hi, sweetie. Let’s get you out of here, ya?”

        She gave a small, slow nod.

        “Alright, well I’m going to pick you up and you’re going to have to hold onto me like you’re giving me a big hug, ok?”

        She gave a similar nod.

        “Ok, here we go.”

        He picked her up carefully, noticing how she flinched slightly and how cold she was. Since he was so warm, she gave no hesitance to hold onto him as she nuzzled into his chest to take in the warmth. He hesitated in surprise before wrapping his other arm around her, patting her greasy hair, which made him wince at the feeling.

        “It’s ok, we’re going.”

        He held her with one arm now and grabbed the rope with his free hand.

        “Keep holding on like this.” He reminded her lightly before starting his climb.

        It was much more difficult with a passenger to climb up and even more difficult when he could only use one hand. He stayed determined though to get out, not for himself but the little girl clinging onto him. The climb was long but he reached the top, hugging the girl tighter as he swung himself out. Sitting on the ground, putting his back on the well wall, his breath came out rapidly as he tried to catch it while the little girl stayed nuzzled in his chest.

        “We made it.” He let out as he closed his eyes for a moment.

        He waited till his breathing calmed down before he took in his situation. He had a possible starving and dehydrated child, miles away from L’Manberg. The sun would set soon and he’d be slower with the extra weight to bring along. So, he needed to set up camp.

        “Alright darling, I have some water and an apple in my bag. I’m going to put you down and give you that while I set up a quick camp for us to rest in till morning. Ok?”

        The little girl gave a nod and he lightly squeezed her before putting her down instead against a tree, kneeling in front of her as he went through his bag.

        “Drink slowly, don’t want to make yourself sick.” He gently told her, giving her the water before taking a cloth and the apple.

        Carefully, he cut apple using an unused arrow as she slowly drank. He put the cut-up apple on the cloth giving it to her.

        “There were go, darling. You rest up and I’m going to get a fire going to warm you up.” He gently patted her shoulder before he stood up.

        He took off his jacket and hat before working on getting a fire going. As he worked on getting materials, he took off his walkie.

        “Tommy.” He called out on the public L’Manberg channel.

        “Wilbur! Where are you?” Tommy questioned.

        “I’ve gotten held up exploring, I’ll be back tomorrow. Keep everything together for me alright?”

        “Of course, I will! I’m the Vice President!”

        Wilbur chuckled lightly. “Right, thank you, Mr. Vice President. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

        “Ok. Be careful out there.”

        “Will do.” Wilbur nodded before putting his walkie away again.

        He came back and started the fire. The little girl scooted closer to the warmth coming off the flames as he tried to set up a little shelter for the night to hide from mobs using large branches.

        “Alright, we have somewhere to sleep little one.” He smiled as he sat next to her, wiping sweat off his forehead. “I should introduce myself now. I’m Wilbur, I’m President of a nation called L’Manberg.”

        The little girl played with the rags she wore before she looked at him.

        “I’m (Y/N).” She let out quietly, her voice still having a slight rasp.

        He smiled wider hearing her speak. “That’s a very pretty name. Do you have a home?”

        (Y/N) paused as she scrunched up her nose when she thought.

        “I-I don’t remember things very well Mr. Wilbur. I don’t know.”

        “Hey, it’s ok.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I can take you back with me and you can think about it somewhere safe ok?”

        She nodded. “Ok.”

        “Then we’ll do that in the morning darling.”

        When night fell, Wilbur shepherded her inside the shelter and made her comfortable little corner, laying his jacket on top of her. He stayed up during the night just incase with his bow at his side. As the night went on, he’d glance at the little girl to make sure she was alright. He was worried about how she might have gone down the well.

        Was her bit of memory loss from how long she was down there? How long was she down there?!

        He’d make sure she was ok though.

        In the morning, he went out to check for any stray mobs before he woke up the little girl.

        “It’s morning darling. Let’s get to L’Manberg.” He smiled gently as she rubbed her eyes sleepily.

        “Ok, do you have more water, Mr. Wilbur?” She asked.

        “No, I’m sorry love. I wasn’t planning on being out so late last night.” He apologized. “I’ll get us back as fast as I can so we can get more water.”

        “Ok.” She muttered.

        “Why don’t I carry you so you don’t tire out?” He offered as he put on his hat and his bag. “You can put my jacket on and then ride on my back.”

        He helped her out before picking her up.

        “Here we go (Y/N).” He smiled before making the walk home.

        It was another half a day’s journey but he moved as quick as he could. As he walked, he told her dorky little stories to make her give little giggles and even sang a few songs to her, just wanting to keep her entertained. Before even he knew, half a day was gone and he grinned as he saw the welcoming walls of L’Manberg.

        “There’s home.” He told her. “L’Manberg.”

        “It looks pretty.” She mumbled.

        “It is. And it has very nice people inside. I have a friend in there, Niki, I’m sure she’ll make you some cookies if you ask her nicely and we’ll get you some water.”

        His own stomach grumbled but he didn’t feel it as he felt the little girl squeeze onto him lightly.

        “That sounds nice Mr. Wilbur.”

        “Just call me Wilbur. I’m going to be taking care of you until we see if you have a home, so no need for all that mister stuff.”

        “Ok.” She smiled this time, hiding in his shoulder.

        “Now, let’s get down there and get you cleaned up. Then, we can go look around with some cookies.”

        He went down, smiling to himself. He didn’t know if (Y/N) had a home. He’d look, but he doubted there was any place that she belonged to but she’d have a home now if that was the truth. He’d give her the best care and live in one of the best nations, where he’d always keep her safe.

[hangezoeenthusiast]

Totem of Undying

gn!reader

person: c!technoblade

word count: 1,852

warnings: blood, yelling, cursing, failed execution (art not mine, SAD-ist on youtube)

One day, you were pacing across Techno’s floor, wearing out the carpet, wondering were he was. He was gone for 9 days, and normally he isn’t out for that long.

He specifically said before his little expedition, “I won’t be gone long, I just got to get something for Phil.” “Ok, have fun honey.” you said, not looking up at him from your book. “You’re sure you don’t need anything?” he asked, trying to find a way to spend a little more time with you before he left. “Yeah, I’m sure, just tell Phil that I said hi.”

“Ok, bye my Aphrodite.”

Ever since, you haven’t gotten any messages on the comms, no messenger birds from him, or any sign of communication between the piglin hybrid and you.

“If he was going to Phil, then I should call Phil.” you murmured under your breath. How could you forget, he said he was going to get something for Phil, so he must be with him.

You looked for you phone, and called Phil’s number. “Hello, who is this?” replied on the other side of the phone. “Phil, is this you, I need to talk to you.”

“Oh hey Y/n, how are you doing?” “Not particularly well, um I have a question, is Techno there, he isn’t answering my calls.”

"Umm, well, he isn't here right now." he states, regret lacing his words. "Well where is he, it's urg-" Phil cut you off, "Y/n, you don't know?"

"What do you mean Phil?"

"I don't wanna say this, but he got captured by the Butcher Army." "Are you fucking kidding me, when he get caught?" you questioned. "IThey came to your house a few days ago, didn't you see them?" "No, I don't think so."

Then you suddenly remembered, “I think they might have came to our house. I was on a trip to get some spider eyes, so I guess that’s when they came over and got Techno.”

“Yeah, they haven’t come back yet, they tried to interrogate me, but I said no, and then they put an ankle monitior on me.” “They decided that if I wasn’t going to tell them anything, they would confine me to my house.”

You apologized to him, “I’m sorry Phil, hopefully you get that off soon enough.” “It’s fine Y/n/n, right now, what I’m concerned about is Techno. The Butcher Army built something, it’s a little cage with an anvil, I watched them build it, but it was kinda vague to me.” "I'm coming to L'Manberg Phil, I'll be there in a hour or so." "Ok, be safe."

-

You arrived in L'Manberg, looking for Phil's house. "Hey Y/n." he spoke. "Right back at you Phil, how are you doing today?" "I'm doing eh, I'm just worrying about Techno." "Me too, hopefully he turns up soon."

So then you stayed with Phil for a while, drinking tea and talking about random stuff. You were trying to buy your time until Techno popped up somewhere, preferably unharmed.

“Yeah Phil, there was-” Hooves stomped on grass, triumphant talking covering every sound outside. The people that cut you off was the Butcher Army, who was boasting their victory over their fight with Technoblade.

Techno, blood all over his skin, bruises on his face, barely showing any sign of his true skin tone. Chains rapping all over his body so he wouldn't escape. You felt devastated, what had they done to him? Behind them was Quackity riding Carl, holding him hostage so Techno couldn't escape on his steed. "What did they do to you?" you whispered under your breath.

They led Techno to the stage, when he looked up at you and Phil, suprise basking his face. "PHIL, PHIL, WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU PHIL, Y/N, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" he yelled from under you guys. "I'M FINE TECHNO, THEY PUT AN ANKLE MONITOR ON ME." Phil screamed back.

They dragged him away from the house, bringing him onto the stage. "LEAVE PHIL AND Y/N ALONE YOU HEAR ME, LEAVE THEM ALONE." he retaliated. They locked him in the cage, where he was waiting his impending doom.

"Technoblade, this is actually not a trial, if you look up, you can see an anvil hanging down. When we press that lever down there, what it's going to do is drop on you and it's going to fucking kill you."

After Quackity's little statement, he demanded Tubbo to explain to everyone what was happening, but what they didn't know was that there was an ally, or friend of Techno's that would help him sooner or later.

After Tubbo spoke about how Techno betrayed the country, and how he had to pay for his wrongdoings, Punz swooped in, throwing snowballs to distract the Butcher Army. With his armor clad self, he started to attack them, momentarily trying to buy time for Techno. He splashed potions all around himself and the Butcher Army.

Then he started to load up the stage with unlit TnT, sending a warning to the Butcher Army not to fuck with him. Quackity yelled in scaredness, hoping that Punz wouldn't light the TnT. "PUNZ, PUNZ, CHILL THE FUCK OUT PUNZ, CALM DOWN." Quackity begged. He didn't stop, and that lead to the whole Butcher Army attacking him with their axes.

While they were chasing Punz, they didn't realize that he slipped Techno a totem of undying. That's right, one of the only things that can prevent death if someone was to kill someone else. So when Punz left the scene, and Ghostbur came to the stage to secretly tell Techno that he named his sheep "Friend", they started to prepare for execution.

"Ok, no more, I'm pulling this fucking lever." Quackity stated. And there is was, he pulled the lever, and the anvil went crashing down on Techno's head. But Quackity didn't know that he had a totem of undying in his hand, so when the anvil came down on Techno, there was a flurry of green and yellow sparks all around him, protecting him from his death.

During the little show, Techno escaped the iron cage, and ran for his life. The Butcher Army was confused, why did Technoblade die, he was supposed to perish, right?

He ran to the little hole in the ground, and was meet by Dream, riding Carl. Dream started to block up the hole, while Techno rode Carl to victory. As he rode Carl, he reached a control room, where there was chests filled with stuff for specific people. There was Eret's, Tubbo's, his, and many others.

He looted his chest, put iron armor on, and started to prepare for his journey. He splashed potions onto his body, giving him strength for a few minutes, and swiftness. When he realized that the pathway wasn't large enough for both him and Carl, he started to break blocks so he and Carl wouldn't suffocate in the walls.

While he was doing that, Quackity sneaked up behind him, taking him by suprise. “Techno, you’re not leaving this place, how didn’t you die?”

“None of your business Quackity, how about you leave me alone.”

“You’re my business Techno, and as long as you’re alive, this server is going to go to shit.” And this the fight began, Techno only donning a pick axe for a weapons, and iron armor, and Quackity, with full netherite and all the tools you could ever need for a fight.

Their weapons clashed together into a disgusting sound. “I’M GOING TO DEFEAT YOU TODAY TECHNOBLADE.” shouted Quackity, thinking he was going to win. “NOT A CHANCE.” Techno answered.

Quackity was clearly arrogant in this matter, even though he had the good stuff, and Techno had the shitty stuff that would be easily broken, he forget something. He forgot that he didn’t have technique, and Techno was the great night Blood God. Technoblade could’ve easily, if he wanted to, take down an entire village.

But he didn’t, and that’s what Quackity didn’t realize. Yes, Techno did some shitty things in the past, but he declared that he was going to retire from the fighting, from everything that related to violence. It wasn’t necessary to try to execute him.

So when the final swing hit, Quackity with his ego to a high capacity, at almost half a heart, Techbo easily defeated and killed Quackity, taking one of his canon lives.

-

You paced across the wooden floor for 10 minutes. “Phil, is Techno ok, where is he, why isn’t he here right now, Phil-” you cut yourself off, “Phil, is he dead?” “No he isn’t Y/n/n, I know Techno, he’s still alive, trust me.” he assured you, trying to comfort your thoughts, but it wasn’t getting to you.

Techno had to be dead, an anvil fell on him. “But what was the green and yellow sparks, what was the reason for that?” you thought. Was that a distraction, or was it something more significant.

“Phil, are you sure he’s-” he interrupted you with a shush. “Do you hear that?” he asked, not sure what’s was happening outside of his home. “No, I don’t, what’s wrong?” “Stay here Y/n.” he ignored your question.

He sneaked toward the door, trying to quiet his footsteps. He slowly opened the door, looked around, and saw Techno standing there, covered in bloody armor. “Holy shit Techno, what are you doing here, they could come any minute.”

“I need Y/n for a second.” he calmly said, trying to ease Phil’s nerves. “Mate, what about the Butcher-”

“I killed their leader.” “Heh?” “I killed Quackity, unfortunately it isn’t permanent.” he sighed. “Ok, first of all, weirdchamp, and secondly, please come inside, you’re worrying me right now.”

Phil let Techno in, and offered him a cup of tea. “No thanks Phil, so back to what I was saying, where is Y/n?” “Oh, they’re in the back, I thought you were someone else.” “Thanks.”

He stepped towards the direction you were in, and opened the door to find a frantic, worried Y/n. He put his body on the doorframe nonchalantly, “You missed me?” You turned around from your pacing, and looked at Techno, relief coating your eyes, “TECHNO.”

“Y/n.” he replied. You hurriedly walked to Techno, and gave him a bone-crushing hug. “Oh my goodness I’ve missed you so much, why did you have to leave, I don’t want you to die, fuck Quackity and the rest of them...” You rambled on and on about how the Butcher Army should be convicted, and a whole bunch of other things, when Techno cut you off, “Calm down my Aphrodite, I’m back, and that’s all that matters.”

"Ok, well are you hurt anywhere, Phil has some healing pots as well as some bandages." "I'm fine, but are you ok, did they hurt you?" he put his hand on your shoulders. "I'm ok, they didn't acknowledge me."

"Well, I'm glad that was the case."

You severely hugged him again, "Please never leave without me, I don't want this happening again."

"Never Y/n, never."

[prose-for-hire]

Vampires Suck

Pairing: Spike x reader (gender not mentioned)

Request: not requested. I couldn’t sleep and this was the result. In my fictional land anyone can give blood (mlm and anaemic people included). This fic includes a magical loophole where (chipped) Spike can bite so long as the human agrees.

Warning: Biting. Blood. Swearing. Very heated kissing. Sex references. Reader smokes a cigarette.

A/n: Moral of the story is, give blood. You never know who might need it ;)

You had always given blood regularly. Since you were old enough you went and gave a pint of the red stuff. Not just for your free snack after. It was just a part of your life now. However, you never realised that the blood you had donated might have gone to someone looking for their own kind of snack.

It was dark out, you had only been able to come for your appointment in the evening. You had been outside waiting, you had come too early again. You didn’t want to go in yet or face the miserable receptionist who made it her mission to make you feel unwelcome in the cheeriest way possible every time you came here.

You were stood in the parking lot of the medical centre as you started to hear a rustling sound. You turned and the parked donation van was moving and someone was cursing loudly from inside. You frowned, deciding to investigate.

You walked over to the van and opened on of the doors to find a man trashing the area. It was the type of van that could allow for someone to give blood in there should it be full in the centre. 

The man had slicked back, bleach blonde hair, he was painfully attractive and he was holding an empty blood bag and staring straight at you.

“Uh, are you okay?” You inquired.

“Does it sodding look like it? All out of the good stuff in here only got the fancy gourmet kind”

“What?”

“Talking blood. Y’know, kind that gives you life... makes you hard” He said as if it was obvious.

“Right. Yeah. I’m going to go now” you shook your head in disbelief. He was certifiable and you had just made it your problem.

You walked back to your waiting spot and hoped he wouldn’t follow you. The noises coming from the van stopped, he was thinking. And now he was coming your way. Perfect.

He stood for a moment, looking you up and down before shrugging to himself and taking something out of the inside pocket of his leather duster.

“Cigarette, love?”

“Probably shouldn’t. I have an appointment soon”

“Don’t make it taste much different. Kind of... smoked I suppose”

You just stared for a moment and took the cigarette he was still waving in front of your face. If anything it was to shut him up.

He smirked as he handed you his lighter and you lit the smoke and inhaled. That receptionist was going to have a field day when she smelled it on you. She wouldn’t know which disapproving expression to use first.

“Do you have an appointment too or are you just on day release?” You asked and he actually snorted at the question, almost choking on the smoke. He was enjoying this interaction.

“Just looking for blood as I said” He explained before inhaling again. It was often easier to just loot a blood bank, charming someone into agreeing to give him their blood could take effort that often wasn’t worth it.

“Why?”

“Guess” He said and you sighed, but bit.

“You’re a vampire” you said without missing a beat. It was the lamest thing that you could think of.

“That was quick” he said actually surprised, “Bloody Drac” he then muttered realising it was probably his fault you had guessed so quick.

“Funny” you mumbled through the filter as you inhaled the thick smoke into your lungs. You weren’t convinced in the slightest.

“No, really”

“If you were a vampire you wouldn’t tell me unless you were gonna-“

“Go on” His eyes glinted dangerously as he gestured with his head.

“I think it’s time for my appointment, thanks for the smoke” You rushed the words out, crushing the cigarette under your feet. The hairs on the back of your neck had started to stand on end, you stared at the entrance to the centre but didn’t move fast enough. As if you were willing him to stop you.

And he did as you took a step away. He grabbed your arm and pulled you back. He was strong. Crap.

“Hear me out, love”

“Get off my arm, idiot” he did let go very slowly. He was starting to really like you. You were kind of rude but in a fun way. And you were extremely attractive to him. Which is how he came to his proposition.

“Won’t take nearly as much as those leeches in there would and I’d treat you to better than a cookie” he raised an eyebrow to try and entice you further.

“There’s no way that you could be a-” You started but you watched as his face shifted briefly. Fangs protruded from his mouth, his forehead bunched and ridged at the centre, “-holy fucking shit!”

“Yeah, right. Come here” he was interested to note you weren’t scared, just trying to process a lot at once. He was also hungry so he grabbed you by the wrist and pulled you back up into the back of the van and slammed the doors closed behind you, “I need you to agree” He said as he sat you down on a swivel chair.

“You want me to sign a fucking consent form before you drain me of my life?! What is this some new-age vampire shit?”

“I’m hungry, your blood is at least half-decent and you’re all I’ve got”

“What’s in it for me?” You squinted.

“The eternal gratitude of a man that will actually live for ever”

“Doesn’t mean anything if I won’t be alive to feel the gratitude”

“Bloody-“ You were irritating him, you had an answer for everything, “look, I can’t bite unless someone agrees to it. I’ll take a pint, maybe less. You’ll get something from it too, I promise”

“Does it hurt?”

“Yeah, but pain and pleasure kind of go hand in hand, right love?”

You smiled slightly at that and he smirked even more. He had definitely picked the right one. To think he was gonna try and charm that cow of a receptionist again in his desperation.

You made up your mind. What did you have to lose? 

“So you-?” He pressed.

“Agree. Consent. Go for it” you offered with a shrug so he could take his pick. You really weren’t sure why he needed it. His face instantly shifted. His demeanour darkening. It was only as frightening as it was hot. Or, that’s what you told yourself. You weren’t convinced he was going to make it as good for you. You came here expecting a small pinch and a bravery sticker, maybe a biscuit. So, anything more than that would just be a bonus. You tended not to get your hopes up to avoid disappointment.

You didn’t realise you were about to be pleasantly surprised. Very pleasantly surprised.

He sat on the seat beside you, he leaned into you, pulling your chair from underneath and dragging it towards him. He jerked your head to the side. His fangs protruding from his mouth and you closed your eyes.

He didn’t hesitate, his teeth sunk into the soft skin on the left side of your neck. He pierced your skin, making sure it was deep. His jaw locked around your neck. He retracted his teeth only slightly and allowed your blood to start to run before he began to suck on your neck.

You hissed as he had penetrated your skin. It stung at first before it started to melt away. The dull ache in your neck still there but it gave way to a much richer feeling. Euphoria.

The sensation of him sucking the blood from your wound felt insanely good. Your head started to roll back, you didn’t notice the way he firmly grasped the back of your skull. Your head moving further to the side. For deeper purchase on your neck and for your comfort. You were lost in this feeling. It was nothing you had ever felt. Pure ecstasy. It felt so good you didn’t know whether to touch yourself or him.

He drank deep, taking you in completely. Your hands started to move, your fingers crawling up his back in desperation. Willing him to drink deeper. Harder.

Your nails started to drag down his back, he enjoyed this sensation you could tell. You wanted him closer, everything about him enticed you no matter how much danger you felt you were in. Your brain was screaming and you couldn’t figure out how much of it was fear and how much was pure desire.

Your breathing was heavy and you didn’t care about anything anymore. Only him. His touch. The way his mouth felt. His smell was so delicious you weren’t sure if you weren’t going to snap and start biting him in return.

He really didn’t want to stop, your blood was the sweetest he had ever tasted. Nectar of the Gods. Your heightened arousal was affecting him too, he could taste it it was so strong. He just about managed to unlatch his fangs from your neck before he rounded into headache territory.

But he couldn’t let go of you. Usually this was transactional for him, even amusing to watch the human in their desire.

But he wanted more of you. To soak up every drop. He didn’t question it. Why this stranger made his head almost as dizzy with want as theirs. He no longer knew where your arousal ended and his began. But he didn’t think about it. He just enjoyed it.

His mouth met yours roughly, his hands were everywhere at once and you desperately missed the way his mouth felt against your neck. You kissed him with such passion, writhing against him. You wanted him inside you just like he now had you in him. Coursing around his veins.

His kiss was hot, urgent. And you couldn’t hold yourself back anymore. You started to fumble to unbuckle his belt for him but he took your wrists and restrained you, pushing you against the side of the van. Your back pressed hard against the wall. He assaulted your mouth instead, the metallic taste of your own blood mixed with saliva.

He had you there, in your mind he could do anything to you and you would have taken it gladly.

Your face was covered in your own blood, he enjoyed the sight. That he had done this. Even that you had wanted him to.

He moved, kissing down to your neck where the bite mark was still fresh. There was still some residual liquid that he caught on his tongue. He lapped at the wound lightly and you moaned into his ear making him smirk. He wanted to play that sound over and over in his mind. He kissed back up to your mouth He was almost struggling keeping your wrists at bay. Almost found it cute you were trying to struggle against him. He caught your mouth several times, your lips the best he had ever felt against his. He was enjoying this too much for something that he expected to last a mere moment. He was hungry for you in such an innate way.

You started to slow your movements, becoming exhausted.

He slowly felt the come down of your arousal approaching. He cursed it, wishing it wouldn’t. He was having too much fun. But you might want to leave it there and he was going to give you that choice. I mean, he wasn’t a complete animal.

He stepped away and you whined. You slid down the wall as he let you go, he had been the only thing keeping you up. He just stared as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. His eyes boring into you. You felt so exposed.

You managed to slide to sit in the seat you had started in. You fought to slow your breathing down, wiping your own blood from your face as he watched you come down from the euphoria.

You now felt a little embarrassed as his eyes wouldn’t leave your form. He didn’t even seem to blink. He had stepped back from you, as if he couldn’t trust continuing to be in such proximity. You definitely hadn’t planned on doing what you had just done and he knew it. Which is why against his better judgement he had held you still.

“I-“

“Hope it was as good for you as it was for me” he smirked, starting to turn to the doors and leave the van with you still trying to form words. The wound on your neck was throbbing, but you knew you would have done it over again.

“I-“

“Yeah?”

“Don’t know your name”

“Spike” he said, offering his hand to you to help you out of the truck too. You were a bit wobbly getting onto your feet, which he was expecting. You were surprised he hadn’t left you there. To be fair, in the past he usually would.

You started walking away from the medical centre, with him by your side. You were still in a daze and he wasn’t that much far gone from being a gentleman he wouldn’t walk you partly where you needed to be (so long as it wasn’t out of his way).

“Maybe we could make it a regular thing” he posed the question innocently but there was a devilish look in his eye. You acted as if you were thinking about it. Truthfully, your mind was screaming out yes. He waited, he for some reason actually cared for the answer.

“You’d have to buy me dinner first this time” you warned but smiled as his own lips tugged into a small half-smirk.

“It’s a date”

[give-grian-rights]

Bets Against The Void c5

@petrichormeraki bet you forgot I even had this fic ! Thank you again for the gift that is Whitelist AU, which feels like a lifetime ago (For Tommy it was !)

Chapter 1 Here

Last Chapter Here

Next Chapter Here

and AO3 Crossposted!

Ask to tag and give me a headsup on any typos ! c!Tubbo in my interpretation is they/them and blind.

The Hobbit Hole was more than Tommy expected. Birch-and-spruce windows poked out throughout the hillside, a round entrance carefully carved from the wood. Poking his head inside, the blond’s eyes darted across the spruce-built interior skeptically.

“..Thanks.” Tommy halfhartedly grumble, pulling his hand off the entrance. He warily stepped in, his hand resting on the doorway entrance for a moment as he investigated for potential traps.

“You’re..Sure we can just- stay here?” Tubbo asked once more, their head turned back towards the dirty blond stood aside the messy front garden.

“Of course, I swear, I don’t need another place to hoard stuff! Chances are, I’ll only be out here if I finally get around to moving my villagers out of their old setup.”  The older brit confirmed once more, his tone light. “Seriously, it’s not a big deal. Promise.”

Hesitantly nodding, Tubbo offered an appreciative smile his way before they turned back towards Tommy. “How’s it looking, then, Big Man?” They hummed, tilting their head.

“Fuckin’ cool as shit-” He glanced around, apprehensively surveying the ground for any traps.

“It needs a bit of cleanin’ up,” Stress chirped, sending a lighthearted glare towards Grian as he stuck out his tongue with a snicker. “We’d all be happy to help.” She finished, with a warm smile.

Tubbo politely nodded. “I think we’ll handle it. Thank you, again.” They ran their hand over the wooden arc in the entrance.

Grian shook his head. “Really, don’t worry about it. Stay here. Get settled. Either of us may be over to check up. Across the lake’s my neighbor, Scar, who you might see. But he shouldn’t come around here.” 

With a bit of exasperation, ready to be left alone, Tommy wordlessly nodded as he bounced his leg. 

Clearing his throat, Grian nodded. “Alright, then we’ll be out. We’ll see you two soon. Cya, Stress, thanks for the help!” He dipped his head towards the short brunette, who grinned bubbly back.

“See ya! Bye, loves.” Stress cooed, before deploying her glowing skeletal wings and ascending off with a quick poof of smoke.

Instinctively when the item had come to her hand, Tommy had thrown his arms around Tubbo’s ears- an action that didn’t go unnoticed by the sandy brunett man.

Grian simply put his hands up pacifying, as Tubbo was shrunk back curled, shielded away from where the brief poof was. “They’re duds, almost all fireworks here are duds.” He had calmly spoke, his tone soft. “I’ll come back to check up on you guys soon, ‘n make sure you have the supplies you need. You have free reign of that base!” Were his parting words, before he trotted off into the woodland.

Tommy uncurled himself from Tubbo. “You good, Bigman?” The blond tilted his head.

“Yeah,” Tubbo chuckled halfheartedly. “It doesn’t really.. Scare me it just- it startles me? Hearing it? ‘Cause I don’t really have time to prepare myself for the noise..Even if it’s not the same as- the kind from. Then.” Their voice wavered for a moment, before they took a shuttering breath. “Yeah, I’m fine, Man.”

“..Mhm..Alright.  Well, this set-up is better than just ‘bout half the shit on’ the SMP.” Tommy diverted the subject, sweeping his foot over the top of the floor, watching the small streak it left beneath a thin coat of dust.

Tubbo tilted their head. “Really? It smells..Very dusty-” They sneezed into their arm, sniffling. “I.. feel like it might need a bit of work, yeah?”

The blond boy shrugged. “Yeah.. We can see ‘bout gettin’ a towel wet or something and wiping all ths shit down?”

Humming in agreement, Tubbo felt around, listening to the words their Comm robotically had been reading off.

“I’ll see ‘bout findin’ shit. They’ve gotta have wool in some of these chests,”

With a bit of digging,  the two teens had gotten to work. Not everywhere in the practically abandoned place was dusty or dirty. A small lush crevice was fresh and clean- or, relatively so. Bright feathers had littered the area around it. A path from a window seal, which had been opened, and to said crevice was nearly spotless of debris outside of such molting feathers or a few leaves.

Now without dust on the outside, the two messed with the chests, rummaging through what could be found.

..Which was a lot. Just not in the places they had expected.

Out of the chests they had searched through, they managed to find almost a doublechest full of various stacked enchanted books-

“How..How did he just leave all of this here?” “Well, he has enough he defenitely won’t notice a few gone!”

A totem of undying in a michalanious chest-

“Woah.. WHAT THE SHIT..” “Dude… This is.. A gamechanger”

A golden apple held by an item frame-

“Finders keepers! This counts, its on a chest.” “Sick!”

Bafflingly, a diamond in the food chest-

“What the actual shit. WHAT THE ACTUAL SHIT-” “What? W- WHAT? WHY?”

Two enchanted, nearly broken bows with enchants- “Better than nothing, I’ll see about combinin’ them unless you feel like pinnin’ the tail on the donkey.” “..Sounds like a good plan, yah.”

And in the middle of the room, a chest with an enchanted diamond axe-

“..Fuck. Wow- There’s just a wholeass enchanted axe! What the fuck is the point of the itemframes if theres no system here?”

“Whats it enchanted with..?” “..Fortune? What a waste. Uhh, some efficiency, too.”

There wasnt much in the main storage room, but they werent quite willing to push their luck and explore too far. At least not until they got some food and set up some sort of gameplan.

The two teens distributed some of the loot they scavanged, damaged iron armor going to Tommy, a shovel to Tubbo and a spare shovel to Tommy, The totem of undying to Tubbo, and the two diamonds they scavenged turned into a diamond sword for Tubbo as well, with the axe and golden apple going to Tommy.

They turned their focus to food. The two sat beneath the support pillars against the walls, taking the time to eat  a handful of watermelon slices.

The wall of chests ahead of them had been broken, exposing the opened window with feathers trailing from it. It was an oddly live scene in the otherwise abandoned wooden hole.

Neither of them quite enjoyed the feeling of being holed in, or the small nature of the wall-home. Nor did either teen mention it.

Tommy explained the varying entrance ways from the mainroom. They had decided on splitting up soon, letting Tubbo find a place to dig out a room for the two of them, with Tommy going off and rummaging through more chests.

Tubbo found a dead-end room beneath a spruce-log room on the second story, and had begun trying to carve it out, as the other teen worked through more and more chests.

The blond eventually worked his way outside and into yard infront of the entrance, rummaging his way through the bits and pieces- the best so far, being another golden apple which he happily held onto.

Half way through his second chest, something caught his attention- or, more like, he caught something’s attention.

A blue, yellow-cheeked bird had fluttered around him, its head quirked curiously as it stared him down. Tommy shrinked.

“What the fuck do you want?” He squinted at the parrot as it lowered itself down onto the top of the open chest, hopping along the edge.

“F⚍ᓵꖌ!” The bird cooed in responded incoherently, chirping at him.

Tommy paused, eyes lighting up in realization. “Oi! You’re the one that flies into the house, huh?” 

In response, it turned it’s head away, nodding. “Hobbit!” It shrilled.

As Tommy had opened his mouth to respond, the hobbit himself, Grian, had flown down, sweeping down with a soft thud.

“Sorry! Uh, Professor Beak has a little spot in there. He likes to go n stay there most days, its a lot cozier than the mansion,” The older Brit chuckled apologetically, putting out his hand for the parrot. 

The blond boy snorted. “‘Professor Beak?’” He’d raise a brow.

The named bird chirped, stepping onto Grian’s wrist without hesitation. “Professor Ellen Taurtis Beak!” It cooed, its voice mimicking that of Grian himself.

It was… A strange display, to be sure.

Sheepishly, Grian hummed, running his spare hand through the bird’s feathers. “They may try ‘n break back in, they’re a pesky bird like that. I’m sorry for bothering you, though. You two doing good?”

“..Hm,,Yeah, thanks. Are you..Like, fuckin’ aware of all the stuff you’re leavin’?” Tommy eyed the strange man, folding his arms.

Grian merely gave a shrug. “Not really? But that just means they’re nothing important. If they help you both get started, they’re yours.”

Huh. Well, that was easy enough.

“..Right. Cool. Bye.” Tommy watched the man, as he easily nodded, striding off with his bird held by his chest.

The blond let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

“..This place is fucking weird.”

[ds-ts-smut-fics]

Far From Home [Chapter One]

Read on Ao3

Synopsis: When Logan, a human monk, comes across an unconscious tiefling in the forest, he nurses him back to health and they decide to travel together. Logan quickly realizes there's a reason Remus is on the road, and not one easily fixed. 

Trigger warnings: NSFW, dnd typical violence, demonic possession, lmk if i missed anything! 

Words: 5,379

A/N: There's some sex scenes in this fic, fair warning. Feel free to give suggestions on what to do, events, loot, etc! This is a completely homebrew world so no limits. They're currently at level 5. Claire is playing Logan, I'm playing Remus. Remus is a bard rogue. 

Logan had never travelled so far between towns. 

He’d been going for several days. There was nothing but fields of dying grass and thick clumps of trees. If memory served well, he was close to the Jubilex Thicket, thus  not too far from a river he could wash up at. The sun was setting fast, though. If he didn’t find a place to camp soon, he’d be travelling in the dark. 

In between the clopping of Juniper’s hooves, something slithered to the right of him. A rustle of leaves, a grunt of pain, and a thud. 

The forest was too dark to see inside, but something rustled. Pulling up on the reins, he tries to see what's moving, hand sliding to his sword as he debates calling out to the dim area off to the side of the path. It could be an ambush, and that would not end well for me. On the other hand, it could be someone in need of aid. 

"Hello? Is someone there?" 

Something slithered away with a slorp sound, and the forest went still. Shivering, he pats Juniper's neck. 

"That's not creepy or foreboding AT ALL…. I think we should continue on our way, maybe there's a clearing ahead."

Juniper shakes her head, moving towards where the sound was, making a soft sound. Frowning, Logan slides off, trying to see what she does. 

"What is it, girl? You see something, hmm?"  

Logan stared hard at the ground, where Juniper sniffed at, but he couldn’t for the life of him find anything. That was, until moonlight glinted off something on the ground— a sickle. Logan trailed his eyes to the hand wrapped loosely around the handle, up to what he quickly realized was a tiefling laying in the dirt. Deep black skin, shoulder-length hair that faded from green to black. He was covered in black clothes, a trenchcoat, hood, and a mask. With Logan’s human vision, it was no wonder he couldn’t see him. 

"Oh dear heavens!" Dropping to his knees, he does a quick check for wounds, using some of his ki to heal him with a touch after moving the weapon as he doesn't want to get stabbed. 

The man’s eyes snapped open— stark white and pupil-less. He sat up with a rush, then dropped one of his sickles to grip his head with a groan. 

Shifting back a little to give space, he can't help but smile. "I promise, I mean no harm. My name is Logan, may I offer some water and rations? Once I make camp for the night I can attempt more healing. It is getting dark for me though, I nearly missed seeing you!" 

He blinked and looked around, his eyes nearly glowing. His voice came out gravelly, painful to even listen to. “Uh… That- That’s okay. I have some. Thanks for the help.” 

"You're welcome, I really must insist though, it wouldn't be right to leave you here. At least spend the night? I can build a fire for warmth, lend you a blanket?" Offering a hand, he hums softly, calloused fingers tan and marked with the practice of using the sword at his hip. "What do you say?"

The man hesitated. He grabbed Logan’s hand and hoisted himself up, then reached down to snatch his sickle. “I’m Remus. If you make a fire, I can set up a place to sleep.” 

Remus didn’t have much on him. He clearly lived out of his backpack, a bedroll stuffed messily on top. His hooves were rough and scratched. 

"Sounds like a deal, Remus! Oh, this here is Juniper, she led me to you." Helping him over, he looks Remus over. "Been out here for long?" 

Remus smiled at Juniper awkwardly, then set his bag on the ground to pull out his bedroll. “So-so. Do you have a bedroll or anything?” 

Tapping a bundle on Juniper, he nods, smiling a little as he turns to get a fire going for them. "I do. Want me to pass it over? I'll get her settled after I get a fire going." 

“Yeah. Here.” Remus dug around in his bag for a minute, before taking out a paper-wrapped box. He tossed it to Logan. “Some meat you can cook. Do you eat meat?” 

Catching it easily, he nods, the fire starting to crackle and glow merrily. "I'm not terribly picky so long as it's cooked. Did you hunt this?" 

He tossed out his bedroll then grabbed Logan’s. “Yeah, this morning. Just glad it’s not going to waste.” 

"Do you not eat meat then?" Tipping his head, he sets his pack down next to the box, turning to tend to Juniper.

“No, I just meant…” Remus laughed weakly and pulled off his trench coat, revealing a ripped up button-down in loose fabric. It hung off his shoulders and showed more of his chest than it covered. He pulled his mask down. He had delicate, round features, face covered in scars. “I almost died. It would’ve just rotted in my bag, you know?” 

"Oh!" Blushing softly, he lets his eyes wander a bit, 'assessing the damage' on Remus. "You were quite injured, but I don't think you would have passed on. Shall I do another healing?" I knew I was more attracted to delicate males, but I am in trouble. He's so lovely! 

He shook his head. “No, don’t waste it. I’ll feel better after getting some rest. Are you a cleric or something? How’d you… You know?” 

"How'd I heal you? I'm a monk, I follow the traditions of the way of mercy. I used some of my energy to give you a little boost in health, and I can do so several more times before I rest if you have need?" Brushing out Juniper a little, he slides off her harness so she can graze. 

“No, really, I’ll be fine. Thank you, though, that’s… Interesting.” He helped Logan skewer the meat over the fire, roasting it almost like he roasted marshmallows when he was younger. “Are you headed anywhere in particular?” 

"Thank you." Turning the meat occasionally, he smiles. "I'm not really headed anywhere specific, are you?" 

Remus hesitated, then nodded. “West. There’s a village on the coast I need to get to.” 

"Would you object to some company? I was simply instructed to leave the monastery and assist others." Looking over at Remus, he smiles a little. 

Remus pulled a sliver of meat from the fire and stuffed it into his mouth, showing off a row of sharp, fang-like teeth. Feral tiefling? Logan pondered. 

Stick your hand in the fire!

“No,” Remus mumbled. 

"Ah, excellent, then I shall accompany you to that village." Nodding, he hums. Feral or not, I did offer my assistance. He's dangerous but oddly cute.

Remus looked up in surprise, then bit back a curse. “I really don’t need any help,” he promised. “You don’t have to.” 

"I don't, that's true. However, I did offer, and I truly don't have anything else to do. It would be a pleasure to accompany you if you'd like a road companion."

What, scared you’ll have to find a quick way to get rid of him? I know a fun way!

“Shut up,” Remus mumbled, then said louder, “Okay. Sure. I’ll take first watch, you get some sleep.” 

He stood, then with a quick echo of fire? in his head, Remus swept his hand through the top of the flames and stepped away to find a good vantage place to take watch. 

"Remus, wait! You're still recovering… If you won't let me heal you, at least let me take the first watch so you can rest and heal?" Logan frowns lightly, worried by the sporadic behavior of his new companion. Is he really okay?

Remus turned to him, pressing his now slightly-burnt hand to his skirt made of rags. “If I go to bed now, I won’t wake up on time for my shift, and I won’t be able to protect us as well. Let me ride the rest of my energy, then I’ll get some sleep. Promise.” 

"Promise to wake me when your energy wanes?" Holding out his hand, he hums. "Let me heal you at least a little more as well, please?"

Remus hesitated, then sighed and took his hand. “It’s really a waste, but sure. And yes, I will wake you up.”

Taking his hand, he smiles softly, kissing the dark skin. "Mmm, thank you. It eases my mind to know you're more healed up to protect us." 

Remus’ face turned bright red. “Uh… Th-thank you. Go to sleep, alright?” 

Nodding, he winks, standing straight again and heading for where his bedroll is set up. "I will. I have some stretching to do first, but I'll be settling in. Thank you for watching the area, Remus." 

Remus climbed up to a low-hanging branch and settled against the trunk, watching their little area. 

You could always wait for him to sleep and take his stuff. His horse has taken a liking to you! She’d be easy to steal! 

“I’m not doing that,” he mumbled. 

Humming lowly as he works though some gentle stretches, Logan turns and clicks softly to Juniper, offering her a cube of sugar as he bids her goodnight. Remus went through his watch, enduring Adelaide’s taunts until he got tired, and finally let Remus settle into quiet. 

He waited until he was about to fall off the branch from nodding off before he got down and shook Logan awake. 

Waking easily, he smiles a little as it clicks who this is over him and he hums. "Remus… You waited a little longer than I thought. Did you want my warm bedroll? You look about ready to drop."

Remus blushed. “Uh… Sure. Let me just roll mine up.” 

He reached for his cold one, only to land hard on his hands. He laughed it off and settled back on his knees, starting to roll it up. 

Taking over the motion, Logan gently helps Remus onto his bedroll, settling his blanket around his shoulders. "Definite cue for you to rest. It'll help me wake up to get this all packed up." 

Remus hesitated, but he really couldn’t help it. Logan’s blanket was warm against the freezing night air and it smelled like him. “Yeah… Okay.” He crawled around Logan to flop down onto the bedroll, kicking off his skirt and burying his face in the pillow. 

Wrapping his cloak around himself more, Logan slides his hood up as he works, adding more wood to the fire. "You deserve a nice warm spot, Remus. Sleep well." 

He mumbled something into the pillow, voice tight with embarrassment, and went to sleep.  

Giving him a soft pat on the hair, Logan turns to making the camp set up organized, watching the edge of the light as the night passes. Hopefully he rests and heals up. I suppose I could try to sneak in another healing touch, but… He hasn't consented.

In the morning, the sun streamed through the trees and directly into Remus’ eyes, waking him up far earlier than he wanted. He pulled Logan’s blanket tighter around him and buried his face in the pillow. 

Reaching over, Logan hums softly, trying to ease him back to sleep. "Shhh…."  

Remus hummed at the hand in his hair and on his horns. “When d’you wanna get going?” He murmured. 

"Not for a bit. It's just barely starting to lighten up." Stroking more, he smiles softly. "Not light enough for human eyes just yet."

He nodded, and started to respond, only to trail off sleepily. “M’kay,” he managed. 

Rubbing over his horns, he smiles softly, getting out a little oil to rub into the chipped surface. "Sleep. I'm watching over you." 

“What is that?” He mumbled. 

"Oil made from pressed sunflower seeds. It helps skin and nails heal when they're dried out. I use it for when my hands are cracked from overwork. I. thought it might do your horns and hooves some good. May I?" 

He blushed and peeked at Logan. “Sure. Not sure how much good it’ll do, but… Sure.” He poked his hooves out from under the blanket and presented his horns, which towered above his head. “Have you been this close all night?”

"I made a small circuit to walk every so often. As it's gotten lighter I can see further though, and you seemed to appreciate it when I was close." Stoking gently, he starts working in the oil with a soft cloth. 

Remus hummed happily and stretched out his legs. “Was I talking in my sleep again?”

"A little… It wasn't a language that I know however. You did seem to settle more when I sat nearby. How are you feeling?" 

“I’m good,” he mumbled. He sat up and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “We should start packing up camp. We’ve got a long way to go.” 

Hand glowing a soft green, he hums. "Very well. So long as you're feeling okay." Finishing up the oiling, he nods. "As soon as we get a little food, sure."

“There should be a town about an hour from here, if you want to get something at a tavern.” He folded up the blanket and bedroll. “Otherwise I can hunt something.” 

"Ah, I haven't really been out this way. That tavern sounds lovely." Helping out, he starts putting the fire out. 

Remus pulled on his trench coat and mask, then shrugged on his backpack. “I can walk beside you and Juniper.” 

"You sure? She can carry us both." Getting the bedrolls attached to her saddle, he hums, sliding on her tack once more.

“I don’t want to impose,” he mumbled. 

Reaching over, Logan taps Remus on the nose softly. "It's not an imposition. I offered, if you're okay with either sitting behind me or in my arms in front, we can make faster time? She's faster than either of us."

“Faster sounds good,” he mumbled. “I can be in front if you can drive that way… I’ll keep a lookout for any threats.” 

"Sounds good to me, that way you can be warmer too. You could do with some more intact clothes." Offering his arms, he winks. "May I lift you up?" 

He blushed and hooked up his pack, then grabbed Logan’s arms. 

Settling his own supplies in place, he grins and lifts Remus with a little bounce as he overestimates his weight. "Oh my, you're so light!" 

He blushed. “Not- Not that light, no…” 

Flexing a little, he grins. "Mmm, toned, definitely. But to my strength, you're light, my dear." Settling Remus in place, he finds a tree and uses it to swing up into the saddle behind Remus safely.

Remus held onto Juniper’s neck, face bright red at Logan’s closeness and warmth. 

Grinning, he reaches over to take the reins. "You okay, Remus? You're clinging like… oh, what was that sea creature with all the arms?" 

“An octopus? I’m fine.”

"That's it!" Shifting Remus up a little, he hums, easing him to lean back on his chest as he guides Juniper in a slow walk back towards the path. "Just relax?" 

“Yeah… Not too much, though. I gotta keep a lookout.” 

Logan’s chest was burning warm against Remus’ back, his arms closing him in. When was the last time he was so close to someone? He didn’t think ever. 

"That's fair, but at least a little so you don't have to worry about tipping off like a wood plank?" Smiling a little, he chuckles. "Don't want to worry about you falling, hmm?" 

“I won’t fall,” he blushed. 

"Good…" Scanning the woods, he hums, clicking his tongue to guide Juniper into going a little faster. "Don't want to see you hurt again." 

Remus laughed weakly. “Right.”

Letting his fingers stroke over Remus a little in the guise of keeping him steady, he hums. "You're cuter without your blood staining your skin… at least to me."

Remus felt weak. He babbled out something unintelligible, before managing, “Do you save a lot of boys from the brink of death?”

"Not recently… and none quite as cute certainly!" Grinning, he hums, leaning in close to whisper in his ear. "It was nice to feel your pulse return under my fingers~!"

Remus leaned back against him, his heart racing. He was in the middle of trying to figure out how to respond when something caught his eye up ahead. 

He sat straight up. “Is that a barricade?”

"Hmm? Is it? I could redirect… Or try and jump it. I don't think she'd like that though." 

“Don’t. We need to turn around.”

“Stop the horse!” A man demanded from behind them. 

"I think that's out…" Kicking Juniper into a gallop, he swerves them to the left, not seeing anyone there even as two crossbow bolts strike the dirt behind them. "Got any ranged weapons, hun?" 

Remus snatched his short bow off his bag and knocked an arrow, watching carefully for any sign of movement. 

“STOP THE HORSE OR WE’LL SHOOT ITS LEGS!” 

"Shit!!" Trying to see where they are and if they're a threat, he leans back a little to give Remus room to shoot as he lets Juniper guide herself, eyes searching for any more bolts. "Where are they?!" 

Two more arrows shot off, one narrowly missing Juniper’s ankle and the other flying wide overhead. 

Remus’ eyes narrowed as he caught their hiding place. A breeze of fabric swept behind a boulder, a head poking above a dip of land. Two crossbows rested over the cliff. 

Remus snatched one of his sickles and dove off Juniper, rolling a bit sloppy but getting to his feet unscathed. Just as he landed, the arrows shot from the cliff. One landed in Logan’s upper arm, the other in Juniper’s side. 

Pulling up short with a curse, Logan slides off his horse, turning to place himself between the attackers and his horse. "We're stopped! Stop shooting!”

The bandits, four of them, jumped out of their hiding spots and came closer with their bows. They stood about twenty feet away. 

“Drop your bags and you can go,” one commanded. 

"What proof have I of that?" Logan frowns, straightening up and using himself as a distraction for Remus, one hand sliding towards his sword. 

They all glanced between each other. One of them jerked their bow. “Just drop it! Let’s get this over with!” 

“No.” Remus shot his bow and hit a bandit straight in the chest. 

He stumbled back with a groan. 

"Gary!" One of the bandits steps out 5 feet and shoots at Remus with a shout. Another sighs and decides to take a shot at Logan. "We gave you a chance…" 

Logan sidesteps the bolt, stepping in to draw his sword and swing. 

The blade sunk into the bandit’s neck, blood gushing forward. The bandit dropped dead. 

Remus kicked the second bandit down and brought his sickle through the bandit’s shoulder.  

"Very nice!" Whipping his sword to clear the blood, Logan grins. 

Seeing how the battle is going the last uninjured bandit turns to flee. 

Remus raised his bow and shot, one hoof planted on the bandit’s chest— it sunk into his back, and he fell. 

He pressed his sickle to the fallen bandit’s neck. “Are there more of you? Where’s your base?”

Stuttering and stammering, the bandit shakes his head, unable to get a clear sentence out. 

Remus pushed the sickle closer. “Answer me or I’ll kill you now and track down your base myself.” 

Setting a hand on Remus' shoulder, Logan hums. "Best answer, he means it!" 

Gulping, the bandit squeaks. "There's just two more! Up the…" He points up to where there's a clear view of the road coming towards the barricade.

Remus swung, digging the sickle halfway through the bandit’s neck. He turned and stormed forward, leaping over the barricade. There were some shouts, some slices, then Remus reappeared with blood marking his arms and chest. He stared at the ground carefully, walking slowly. 

Logan hums, looking up from where he's tending to Juniper, having healed her but only wrapped his own arm. He comes over to Remus, offering a hand. "All set? How are you doing?" 

“I’m fine. I’m going after their camp, though. I can meet you at the town.” 

Humming softly, he frowns. "I'm coming with, just in case you need backup, or you can meet me at the river. I think we both could use a scrub up."

“I’m not stopping for a bath,” he laughed, stopping to glance at Logan. “They could rob or kill someone else in the next five minutes. Tracks going this way, if you’re coming you’re coming.” 

Chuckling softly, he nods, leading Juniper along. "I'm coming, and I meant after the clean up we clean up, before we get to town, dear."

Remus took his other sickle from his bag and ran his hand through Juniper’s mane. “Alright,” he whispered as he followed the tracks. “Uh… Thanks. Sorry for the…” He gestured to himself. 

Reaching over, he taps Remus' nose, whispering back. "I'm just glad none of it's yours!"

He laughed quietly. “Really? You’d rather it be…?”

"Mercy where possible, but it should be acknowledged that it is not always possible. There's a reason that I carry a sword. I gave them an option, and they chose violence. I'd rather these few perish as opposed to however many they would harm or kill." 

He nodded slowly. “How long have you been out here?”

"I left the monastery, hmm… I believe it was 8 days ago?" Pointing to a fork in the path, he hums, gesturing up. 

Remus’ eyes widened. “Jesus. You… Do you have any adventuring experience?” Remus stopped and put a hand on Logan’s chest. “Are you sure you should be doing this?”

"I've been out on expeditions with my fellow monks. We are trained to be wanderers… and I have been on the road with my parents before I joined the order." Smiling, he takes Remus' hand, kissing it. "I am quite capable, my dear, but thank you."

Remus’ face turned bright red. He stumbled over his words for a moment, before taking his hand back and continuing along the tracks. 

Grinning, he follows, watching for clues to where the camp is. While Logan didn’t find any tracks, the path they were on was not intentional, made from years of kicking away and flattening foliage. They trudged deep into the woods, silent and crouching the entire way. 

Remus saw it before Logan did— Stilts of wood going between trees, a clear barrier. Remus narrowed his eyes and gestured for Logan to wait. Arching an eyebrow, Logan pauses, waiting to see how Remus procedes forward. 

Remus misses seeing a wire settled near the ground as he moves forward, only feeling it when it presses against his ankle before it shifts quickly, slicing a little as it pulls a rope around his ankles and a net scoops him up into the trees. 

“Fuck!” Remus hissed, scrambling around for his dagger. 

There's some rustling in the area where the stilts lead up to, the trap having set off a silent alarm there as well. 

Logan curses softly, heading to the area to see if there's a rope he can cut to help lower the net to the ground. "Calm yourself, don't thrash too much, you'll tangle yourself more!" 

Remus slashed a hole in the net and it dropped him towards the ground, Logan darting forward to catch him, with a small smile. 

"Got you, darling!" 

He sets him down carefully, letting Remus get settled with the knife now properly stowed and brandishing his sickles as footsteps raced towards them. 

Logan steps in front to shield him from the oncomers, sword out and ready to swing even as he's calling out to the people coming. "Prepare yourselves!" 

Remus fought back the blush to focus. A bandit jumped out of the foliage and slashed at Remus with a scimitar, digging into his shoulder and wetting his coat. 

Logan curses softly, touching Remus to heal him some with a ki. Stepping in prepares to attack the bandits at the next opportunity. One bandit with green hair kicked Remus away and took another slash, just barely missing. A half-orc stepped out of the foliage to Logan, bow held up. He shot, the arrow nicking Logan’s ear. 

A half elf slices out at Logan with his scimitar, slicing into his side and making Logan shout out in pain. Remus growled and snatched his dagger only to throw it, sinking it straight into the half-elf’s eye and taking him down. 

The last bandit pales a little, deciding to attack the taller human that they'd gotten a hit on rather than the scary looking black-horned demon, swinging wildly at Logan and missing terribly.

Logan turns, taking two swings at that cowardly bandit, hitting both times and making him choke on blood as he falls to the ground. 

The half-orc in the trees shoots another bolt off, and it stuck into the tree above Logan’s head. Remus snarled and whipped around, throwing his hand out. 

“You fucking coward!” He snapped, casting vicious mockery. 

The bandit flinched and dropped his bow to hold his head, groaning. 

"Want to do the honors of finishing the coward off, dear, or let him come down to face us?" 

The half-orc reached for his scimitar, stumbling forward with a red face and narrowed eyes. Remus stormed forward and decapitated him with his sickle. 

He sheathed them and groaned, holding his shoulder. “Fuck, that hurts.” 

Logan frowns softly, reaching over to examine him, using a ki to heal him when he sees the damage. 

“Goddamn,” Remus sighed, pressing his forehead to Logan’s shoulder. “How much of that do you got?” 

Smiling a little, he gives Remus a gentle hug. "I can do that twice more today." 

“I’ll try not to make you need it. I have a greater healing potion for emergencies, so don’t-” 

“HEY!” 

Remus froze. 

“You pieces of shit done yet?!” 

“Hide,” Remus snapped, crouching and diving into the foliage. 

Freezing a moment longer than Remus, Logan makes for some bushes on the other side of the oath, having to take a moment to find one big enough to hide his bulky frame. Big footsteps fell along the ground. 

A goliath bandit captain stepped around their camp, bushy eyebrows knitted into a deep frown. “Hello?” He grunted. 

Remus squeezed his eyes shut, breathing heavily, then snapped them open and sprinted out of hiding. 

The goliath whipped around but Remus was faster, slashing the sickle along the goliath’s waist. The goliath hissed in pain, turning to Remus in surprise. 

Stepping out, Logan attacks the goliath's back, slicing in deeply with a chuckle. The goliath stumbled away from them, face bright red. 

“You killed my men?” He roared. “YOU KILLED MY MEN?” 

He grabbed his great axe and charged Remus, his rage steering him wrong and missing wide. Remus jumped out of the way and brought the sickles down on his ankle, both missing. 

“Fuck me!” Remus snapped. 

"Maybe later, dear?" Logan can't help but quip as darts in to try a hit of his own, missing as well. 

The goliath let out an unearthly cackle. “You murder my men and you can’t even get a hit in? Pathetic.” 

He brought the greataxe down over Logan’s head. Logan ducked away but the axe still managed to slice through his robes and crack open his leg.

“Logan!” Remus narrowed his eyes, rage bubbling in his chest. He whispered menacing threats under his breath, Adelaide coming in with his own excitable suggestions. 

The goliath looked around in panic, his eyes watering. He almost dropped his great axe, then shook himself out of it. 

Grinning a little, Logan steadies himself, attacking once he's steady on his feet again with a wide grin, slicing into the goliath's arm. The goliath dripped blood, a steady trail along the ground. He was looking pretty beat up, but was still steady on his feet, grinning. 

“You really think you two will walk out of here alive? A human, and a little devil? Defeating me?” 

Remus braced his sickles. “I’ve killed more than you before.” 

"Together we are stronger than alone!" Logan grins as he watches Remus move.

He glanced around the camp, taking in the mountains of supplies, the barrels and crates that clearly held corpses. He yelled angrily as Adelaide helped him hit, slicing his sickles into the goliath’s midsection. The goliath groaned and gagged as his stomach dropped blood and skin, dropping down to one knee. 

Taking a step in, Logan swings twice, eyes hard. "You shall receive your just reward for the life you have lived here." 

He looked back at Logan, eyes hard. With the realization that the two unlikely martyrs weren’t going to leave without killing him, a second wind rushed through him. He pushed himself to his feet. He slashed at Logan, opening a large cut in his chest and ripping away some of his robes. 

Remus’ eyes landed on Logan, heaving for breath, limping. He rushed over and touched his face, black energy pooling around Remus’ hand and dispersing along Logan’s body. 

Leaning into the touch a little, Logan smiles slightly as he steadies, dripping less blood as some of his injuries heal up. "Thank you, dear." 

Turning back to the goliath, he frowns, stabbing him harshly. "I liked these robes. Blue is my favorite color." 

The goliath howled in pain. He kicked Logan’s weapon away and turned to Remus. The greataxe lodged into Remus’ side. He doubled over as fire erupted along his side, sucking in a breath of pain. 

“Fuck,” Remus choked out. 

Adelaide’s laughter echoed in Remus’ head. Remus’ eyes glowed red, and purple flames surrounded the goliath. 

When they melted away, the goliath laid on the ground, charred to a crisp. 

"Wow…" Letting himself sit heavily, Logan laughs softly, a bit dizzy and mesmerized by the colors now that the danger has gone away. 

Remus’ red, pupil-less eyes flicked to Logan. He grinned, blood staining his teeth. “You didn’t think I’d let him break my favourite toy, did you?” 

Logan's eyes widened and he frowned. That was not Remus. From everything he’d learned from the monks… A demon was speaking to him. "Remus is not a toy. Release him please." Please don't make me fight him.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He knows, Logan knows. Don’t make things worse. Please don’t make things worse. 

“Don’t whine, darling, it’s unattractive.” Adelaide sighed and straightened up. That same black energy that healed Logan danced along Adelaide’s fingers, pressing it to his own forehead. Some of his wounds closed, but he still looked pretty beat up. 

"Frankly, I don't care about being attractive to you. Remus' reaction is my concern. Who are you and why are you here…" Slowly pushing up, he retrieves his sword, using a ki to heal himself in case he has to fight this creature possessing Remus. 

The demon laughed. He turned and headed back into the forest. 

Where are you taking us? 

“You were heading towards that village, weren’t you? We can have some fun. Don’t you miss it?” 

Reaching for Remus' hand, Logan hums, gently commanding. "No."

Adelaide turned to him in surprise. “Sorry, was I talking to you? Or would you like to join?” 

"I'm not sure what you're planning, but I have intuition that Remus doesn't agree with the plans. I'm standing up for his wishes. You can't just bully him like this." Keeping a firm grip on the dark arm, he straightens up to his full 6' 2" height and hardens his eyes. 

A smirk curled over Adelaide’s lips. “And what will you do to stop me?” His voice echoed. “Remus likes it here.”

Stepping in, he hums, other hand sliding over the dark cheek, smearing a little blood. "Well… I'm willing to give Remus a kiss if he comes back. We had planned to wash up after clearing the bandits. I'm sure they have some clothes he could better outfit in." 

Adelaide rested a hand on the side of Logan’s face. He pressed their foreheads together. “It’s cute how you think Remus has a choice in this,” he whispered. 

His eyes rolled back and he fell.

[theboyz-engup]

To All The Boyz I’ve Loved Before; Letter Six

Summary- It was wonderful what a few little letters could do; they could make or break a friendship, cause someone to laugh or smile, make someone remember the time of their life or that moment they wanted to forget. Just some words on paper and poof, everyone knew the way your heart beat and workings of your brain. High school really did wonders on you, as did those twelve boys. Maybe they didn’t know it, but they changed your whole life with each smile, each wave, and each word you typed into paper. You made them permanent, and now they had to know why.

Word Count- 8.8k

a/n: i legit cannot believe i’m halfway through this story hnngghfgjd i hope you guys all enjoy this, thank you all for sticking with me through it xx

Previous Letter - Next Letter

Coming home to an empty house wasn’t necessarily surprising at this point but the disappointment in his chest didn’t go away. He’d specifically told his parents that this was his only week off and he would be home only for a while if they wanted to see him and still, nothing. He should’ve figured from the train station when neither of them had come to pick him up but, as it turns out, he never learns.

Frowning, Jaehyun knocked his shoes off and placed them to the side, listening for the sound of Honey but realizing she wasn’t here either. He missed her too, almost most of all, and of course they’d taken her too. Bitterly, he made his way to the kitchen and found a few letters stacked up on the counter. Reading the note left by him mom about making his own dinner, he sighed and scoured through the rest of the mail if some was his. Catching his name in typewriter print, he felt a bit excited and, as he walked over to the freezer for some easily made food, he began his read.

Dear Lee Jaehyun,

What you’re about to read has been the best part of my grade ten year. I hope you aren’t upset by the fact that you’re what made it so great.

Early February, 2016

“Did you guys hear?” Amalia was loud, as usual, but this time with something urgent on her lips. She rushed into your little study room, flinging her bag off her back and plopping it on the table with a rush of words following her. As she took out her books and sat down, she rambled, “there was a robbery earlier this morning. Apparently, they hit like four houses down your street, y/n. It’s super weird and dangerous for down here since we all like know each other. I can’t even imagine-”

“Did you just say near y/n’s house?” Shankeri sat up in her seat, taking her boots off the table and suddenly becoming serious.

Amalia nodded, though she didn’t seem worried. “Yeah like a few houses up from her. Police and stuff came before they could loot more so you’re safe but yeah.”

“You sound insane,” Sunwoo stated, not looking up from his paper. He’d taken to keeping his hat on around school, hood on over it and withdrawing into his paper and pen for some quality lyrics. Jace smacked the board Sunwoo had in hand, looking serious as well.

“How are you so calm right now?”

Sunwoo shrugged, pointing the end of his pen at you. Before he returned to his work, he gave Jace a bitter look and muttered, “do you see y/n freaking out? No? Then why should you?”

“Y/n wouldn’t scream if they were about to get hit by a bus,” Amalia hummed, countering Sunwoo. “Their fight or flight instinct doesn’t work. It’s just freeze.”

You had to admit she was right there. You would hardly ever scream, recalling how hard it was to imitate a scream when you were doing a play in grade four. The thought made you cringe and you retreated back to your work.

“Well, it’s no big deal,” you started, picking up your pencil to stare at some numbers that made absolutely no sense to you, “as long as I still have my fridge and microwave, I think I’m good.”

“See,” Sunwoo chimed, drawing the word out. “Now hush, I’m trying to think.”

Hyunjoon from across your little table met your eyes as you looked around. He was the only one who noticed, and he gave you a little smile.

As much as you pretended you were okay with it, the thought of a crime happening in your neighbourhood- so close to you, really- it scared you a lot. You wanted some support or just someone to walk home with you and stay so you wouldn’t be alone. You doubted a robbery would happen again, there were police staggered up and down the streets surrounding your house but you couldn’t help but feel like something ominous was about to happen. It was like there was this ghost floating just paces behind you and you couldn’t see it but you could feel it. That night, luckily, everyone was home. Tomorrow was another issue, seeing as Haymond had an away game for the weekend and your parents needed to visit someone in the city.

Amalia took long strides beside you as you travelled from class to the cafeteria. Her fingers were in the loops of her backpack and she was wearing more makeup than her usual eyebrows and lashes. Her lips pouted out as she spoke, genuinely upset.

“My parents said I’m not allowed to keep you company this weekend while your parents and Haymond are away. They offered for you to come over but my sister’s allergic to dogs.”

Linking arms with her, you only shrugged, trying to play it cool. “That’s fine.”

Panic set in soon after as you realized nobody else was available this weekend. Sunwoo was in the city, far away and training this weekend. Hyunjoon was out for his grandmother’s birthday, and Jace and Shankeri weren’t your closest friends. You could’ve asked them but felt like that was probably more awkward than being alone.

Slowly, on your walk home, you began to realize you really didn’t have any other option. You trusted him, he took care of your dog, he was nice. You went on walks together often enough and texted sometimes. Your mum had even ordered you and Haymond over to dinner with him whenever his parents weren’t home and she wanted a nice date night with dad. It wasn’t the worst idea you had, you admitted; but, maybe if your parents hadn’t left by the time you got home, you could change your mind. Doing some homework on the road wouldn’t be so bad.

Steadily, you rounded the corner to your street and squinted to see further, hoping to see your car in your driveway. There was no such luck and your great idea turned sour in your mouth. You liked Jaehyun, you did, it was just that this was supposed to be a different kind of weekend. You were supposed to relax and study for your classes with Amalia, paint each other’s nails, watch romantic comedies and then break into Haymond’s room and play his video games. Now, you would spend it being entirely nervous but not out of fear; Jaehyun just made you nervous with each look he gave you and each smile. He made your stomach tie in knots and it was so hard to untangle them the more you got to know him. He went from being this quiet and observant boy to a loud and boisterous man, someone who would text you over and over just to pay attention to him and then leave you on read whenever he was busy.

He was so weird and complex and yet, so fun and happy when you caught him on his good days. Sometimes he got really upset though and he caved into himself. He would become so quiet not because he was reading his crowd but because he wasn’t even there. He was thinking and forming a mass of nervousness and self doubt in the pit of his heart. You never knew what to say to him when he got like that, this man who was three years older than you was still just so fragile. Maybe he’s afraid of being alone too, you thought, taking your phone out of your pocket once you got inside and sending him a quick text. It was just a hello but you hoped it would warrant a response.

After a few hours, you figured it wasn’t. You sent one more and then two and then five more messages, all saying the same thing- all just saying hello. The moment you were about to send another, just as the sun dipped over the hill and darkness was holding the world still, your phone rang. The picture of him and your dog showed up, the one you used for his contact photo, with two little buttons for ignoring or answering the call. Quickly, you swiped and brought your phone up to your ear.

You didn’t even have time to say hello. He just went straight into his sentence, deadpanning, “you know, I’ve figured out that if you just stop responding to people then they stop texting.”

Not knowing what to say, you simply stood silent, mouth opening and closing but finding no air for words. Jaehyun didn’t have a problem continuing his thought, voice lighter and more teasing.

“You’re clearly an exception. What’s up, why did you spam me?”

The idea of you hearing your request out loud made your throat swell. Did it sound like you were asking him over because you wanted something from him? You just wanted company- not to be alone and sleep easy knowing someone else would also be there to protect you against the imaginary burglar that could show up. He didn’t even have to interact with you, in fact, you’d prefer it that way. You could just be in the same house and that was enough.

“C- can you like come over or something?” The question took a bit of effort but you made it out. Your eyes were on the ground, watching your feet carry you from tile to tile in your kitchen. The silence made you anxious and you were so close to explaining yourself but decided against it. If he took it the wrong way, that was his fault.

All he did was hang up, the dial tone loud in your ear. With your lips parted, you took your phone from your ear and looked at it. The audacity, you thought, absolutely beside yourself. Jaehyun, the person who’d told you to always call him if you needed something, had just ignored your request. To be fair, he said that with reference to Barly but still, it hurt your feelings.

Barly rounded the corner, his collar creating small chimes as he came closer and closer. He looked up at you in the kitchen and then sat, expectant. You would’ve forgotten to feed him if he hadn’t come to see you, tilting his head towards his food bin.

“Right, I’ll get some dinner for us both, yeah?”

Slowly, you worked around the kitchen and got the meal your mom had written out for Barly. He needed to lose some weight so he was on a strict diet for now and your parent shad been careful enough to list exactly what was needed for each meal and tape it onto the fridge for you to see. As you set the bowl down, telling Barly to wait, you murmured, “guess it’s just me and you tonight.”

He barked in response and you took it as a sign of solidarity. If anything, you could watch some bad movies together. Sure, you wouldn’t have anyone to direct your comments at but it would still feel like you weren’t alone.

“Here you go, buddy,” you hummed before a grown slipped past your teeth. Why did it hurt so much just to bend over. As you walked towards your door to put your extra lock on, rubbing the small of your back, you heard Barly bark again.

He didn’t like to bark and hardly did so it was an odd occurrence. Despite yourself, a chill creeped under your skin and you hurried to your door, knowing the extra lock would give you peace of mind, though the fear wouldn’t really go away. Barly followed after you and got there first, sitting quietly. His tail wagged back and forth slowly and then, one final bark. You couldn’t help yourself and you ran to the door, really just wanting that one final lock on but-

A shriek slipped past your lips and you nearly fell over, your eyes trained on a shadow that appeared before the window of your door. A soft knock fell through and the figure became slightly recognizable, though you didn’t really believe it. Barly came over to you, knocking his nose against your leg almost as if to ask if you were okay.

Jaehyun’s voice followed suit, coming through the door. “Y/n? Did you just scream, what’s wrong?”

“Lee Jaehyun!” you nearly yelled, rushing to the door and ripping it open to be faced with such a casual looking boy. He was wearing joggers and a pair of sneakers with the thinnest hoodie on. A little cap was atop his head and, over his shoulder, he’d strung a bag and a windbreaker.

“You scared the living crap out of me,” you said rather loudly, though your voice shook and wavered near the end of your sentence. His pouted lips formed themselves into a smile as he looked down at you and laughed lightly.

“How? By showing up when you asked me to?”

Puffing your cheeks up, you tried to think of a response but he was right. You did ask for him to come over and he did as was told, only he didn’t tell you he was coming. With a great big sigh, you let him know that he could’ve said he was coming over instead of hanging up because then you wouldn’t have been so worried. Jaehyun was much too preoccupied though, having come in and squatting to rub at Barly’s ears.

“Who’s a good boy? You, yes, you,” he crooned, using his baby voice quietly. When he grinned, his eyes became long and nearly closed, matching Barly’s eyes as he moved his head into Jae’s hands. His lips came forwards as he made ridiculous sounds at your dog, acting so sweet with him. Barly was a second away from falling in love when you called him over to finish his dinner. Swiftly, he left Jaehyun’s hands to come and rub his head under one of yours and then went to his food.

Jaehyun, abandoned, was now forced to take his shoes off and borrow one of your dad’s pairs of slippers, seeing as Haymond’s didn’t fit him. As he got settled in, he asked teasingly, “are you jealous because your dog likes me better? Hmm?”

“He does not,” you protested, crossing your arms as Jae made his way to your living room. He was now holding his bag straight, looking around the place before settling on you.

“I’ll prove it tomorrow,” he seemed to promise. There was something about his eyes that made it feel like he was the son of Hermes. They flashed and glittered like he had secrets and jokes hidden in unorganized piles of papers. Sometimes, you could swear he had figures dancing across them, like he was telling a great story without saying much of anything.

“So,” he started, clearly excited but equally exhausted, “where am I sleeping?”

Leaving Jaehyun to get settled in the living room let you have some time alone for the time being. He promised he’d stay only if you watched movies with him and made him some popcorn. About three times in your little negotiation, he threatened to leave but he was already so comfortable on the couch. The blanket that was thrown over an arm of your sofa was hanging off his shoulders as you played rock, paper, scissors to decide on your final terms, which was the flavour of popcorn. Luckily, it landed on plain popcorn and, while he got ready for movie night, you went to get ready for bed.

You took a shower and got changed, even washed your face and primed it for a face mask, which you were going to force Hyun to do with you. Grinning as you walked downstairs in your winter pyjamas, just a pair of long, plaid pants, and a long sleeved shirt of your father’s, you caught sight of Hyun changing and paused. Dashing back up the few steps so he was out of sight, you whined quietly to yourself, hating the way your heart raced at seeing his shoulder blade. You mean, really? Who cares about a shoulder? You had a shoulder and nobody fawned over yours.

Shaking your head quickly, wishing for the nervousness to disappear and trying hard to manually shove it down your throat, you finished your walk down the stairs. He was now just sitting on the couch, eyes on the television screen and flipping through channels. He perked up seeing you, eyebrows raising and eyes settling on you. He looked so soft, hair now settled so it dared to fall into his eyes and clothes just the slightest bit bigger than they should be to fit. He looked like he had rushed to pack which, honestly, you figured he probably did. He wasn’t wearing the most flattering clothes and yet, he still managed to make you feel all knotted up.

“I brought face masks,” you mused, lifting them up in the air. Hyun clapped, the remote between his hands as he did so.

“Popcorn?” His ears perked up almost as if he were a dog himself, legs crossed and chest leaning forwards expectantly.

“After,” you drew out, sitting on the couch beside him and handing him the one labelled ‘pore control’. Clicking his tongue, he gaped at you as he read the description and tapped your shoulder.

“Excuse me!”

The laugh that slipped past your teeth was calming enough, even though he did complain as he took his out of the sleeve. You were putting yours on without a mirror so you hoped it would turn out fine, your hands smoothing over the bubbles you felt on your cheeks.

“But it’s necessary, have you seen your pores? So open,” you giggled, animated as you explained to him why he was getting his mask. He looked at you incredulous and with his lips parted like a fish’s out of water.

“Okay, I repeat, excuse me, I have great skin, thank you very much,” he huffed, trying hard to put the mask on without his hair getting in the way. He was bending forwards, figuring that gravity would be enough to get his hair out of the way and he wasn’t necessarily wrong. You were chuckling lightly, watching him struggle as you turned the hair tie you had round your wrist around and around.

“You’re just jealous,” he finished, giving up and letting his hair fall on the damp mask.

“No,” you hummed, looking down at your hair tie and deciding to be nice as you beckoned him forwards. “I’m sorry you can’t admit the truth, Hyun.”

His eyes watched you as you got on your knees, hoping the extra height would help you tie a better knot to keep his bangs out of the way. Your fingers grasped as much hair as possible and you tied a knot carefully so that it wouldn’t hurt him but also so he would look like a little pineapple sprout.

Giggling as you pulled away, you sat back down on your legs and announced, “there. You look perfect.”

“I hate it when you laugh like that,” he said worriedly, bringing up his phone to check what he looked like in his camera, “that always means you did something ev- y/n!”

“Take the picture,” you demanded, getting in so your face was in the frame and making a silly face. He took the picture with him looking stern, though he did crack a smile at it after.

“Told you that you look great,” you chimed, sitting down in your spot next to him. You were cross legged with your hands placed in the hole in front of you and your smile was ridiculously easy. Jaehyun just looked at you and scoffed, though he was laughing himself.

Quietly, he reached out and fixed a part of your mask, smoothing out a bubble there before turning his gaze back to the screen.

“Now can we get popcorn?”

You had to pretend like the touch of his skin meant nothing to you as you nodded, suddenly silent as you paced to the kitchen. Unknowingly, you reached to cup the part of your mask he’d fixed and smiled to yourself. All the while, as the popcorn popped and the movie went on, your little smile never faded.

That night was so sweet. It was almost unimaginable that you would be this kind to me. I remember you looking up at me from your spot on the floor (which you said was more comfortable for you but I have my suspicions that you were just trying to make me more comfortable) and asking me so seriously why my parents left me at home that weekend. I don’t think I would’ve had it any other way. You were so nice to me but not because you had to be. You were just a kind person and it felt so good to just be myself with someone who wasn’t going to judge me. Even when I made stupid jokes, you would just look back at me and laugh as if you couldn’t believe I was real. You made me really happy that night and I held onto it for a while. I expect I’ll be holding on for a very long time.

Early March, 2016

“Hey, y/n,” Jaehyun called, shuffling past people in the hallways to catch up with you. Hardly hearing it, you tried to keep going forwards but Amalia stuck her foot out in front of you, stopping you in your tracks.

He was right behind you when you turned to face him and you had to stumble backwards so you weren’t craning your neck up to meet his gaze. Sunwoo’s little story was interrupted as Hyun began his speech, though he was really only talking to you.

With his hands pressing down on the straps of his bag, he asked, “can I take Barly out after school today?”

You blinked. He would usually text you to ask you this, seeing as your classes weren’t close to each others at all- and that he was a senior. There was no sound between you two, which seemed to go for too long since Amalia’s elbow poked your side. From the corner of your eye, you could see her staring you down, eyes wide as if to convey a message.

“Uh, uhh, yeah? Yes,” you decided on saying, snapping out of your head for a moment. Regretfully, you replayed your answer in your head and winced internally, hating the way you sounded. It was like your brain was made of air.

Peaking a smile, Jae straightened, clearly glad. As his face softened, he pushed another question. Somehow, it seemed so calculated, like he was gauging how and when he should say what. Is this what people called feeling someone out?

“Do you want to come with? I want to train Honey near the river and I think you could try it with Barly too. It could be fun.”

Once again, you had nothing to say. The whole situation was entirely overwhelming and you didn’t understand what he wanted. Why he was asking you this, where he wanted to go, why he wanted to go with you: all of it went over your head. All you knew was that your breath could hardly make it past your throat.

Noticing another quiet spell, Amalia took it upon herself to answer, confidently saying, “they’ll think about it and text you? We’re preparing for a test so they’re kind of out of it right now.”

Sunwoo nodded to that, though he didn’t seem quite interested in Jaehyun. His eyes were on your face, carefully drifting between you two. Picking up the ends of what Amalia said, you quickly added, “I’ll let you know. Promise.”

Jaehyun’s smile never wavered, though you noticed how a glitter in his eyes seemed to fall away. He nodded, saying he’d see you later, turned on his heel and walked away. Dumbfounded, you couldn’t move from your spot until Amalia nicked you in the side again. You were so lost in your head, wondering what exactly he meant to do with all of that. The interaction seemed stale and directed, like he came talking with a purpose but not a malicious one. Did he really want to hang out with you, without Haymond or your parents in the way? What his intentions were, you couldn’t even begin to imagine. Your final thought was that maybe… maybe he felt the same flutter in his heart when you tied his hair that you did when he fixed your face mask.

Thinking about it dared for heat to rush up your cheeks but you quickly pushed it down with the elbow in your side, trying to return to reality. Slowly, you looked up at your friend and murmured, “do we really have a test today?”

“N- no, you idiot.” Amalia began somewhat serious but broke into a giggle. With her arm strung around your shoulder, she turned you round and you continued on your way to the cafeteria. Sunwoo was unusually quiet.

“Think you’re going to go?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Sunwoo spoke up, somewhat sullen but clearly trying to force his point. “Y/n’s been into him since they first moved in.”

“Hey,” you tried to protest, raising your voice the slightest but knowing you had no response. Then, quietly, you just nodded your head and said, “I mean, that’s not wrong.”

Amalia giggled, musing as she continued taking the group to your table where Hyunjoon was already waiting, “you don’t even know. He was all she talked about until she found Sangyeon. Do you remember that? No, never mind, we weren’t friends back then. Wow… time really flies, huh?”

And so, she continued rambling, letting people in for interjections but laughing loud and leading the conversation nonetheless. You loved seeing her like this, so carefree and happy. You wanted to really bask in it but in the back of your mind, all you could see was Jaehyun.

Apparently, he was all you would see for the next few months. You would go everywhere together, under the excuse of taking your dogs out for walks. Haymond joined often, saying he didn’t want to eat dinner at home or that Juyeon was busy, so it felt like it was the three of you against the world. Whenever work allowed it, or you were feeling particularly lazy, you’d knock on Haymond’s door and asked him if he wanted to come out with you and Barly. Hyun almost always followed, bringing Honey around. You would risk eating in dog parks or near the river as the weather warmed up. Soon, you felt like you had your own separate friend group. It was your school friends on the weekend but, on weekdays, it was your brother and Jaehyun. You had to admit, you rather loved it.

Your parents seemed to adore it too, happy you and Haymond were spending time together. They would see you two leaving together and beam at each other. It wasn’t that you and Haymond weren’t close before but hanging out together did seem weird at times. Except now, you were practically the same age. One year between you seemed to mean less and less. He wasn’t weird about your crushes and you could talk openly about more things. He didn’t really mind driving you around either, teaching you the ropes before you got your learner’s license.

It felt like being around Jaehyun gave you so many good things in your life besides his time and company. You felt yourself starting to become more of a person and less of a child. While you loved your friends, you wanted to be more mature. You wanted to be respected and to be seen as an equal to Haymond or even Jaehyun. Being with them taught you just slightly how to grow up, despite the fact that they were both absolutely insane when it was just the two of them. Though it wasn’t simple or expected, you were happier, and you couldn’t wait to tell Eric about every day that made you lighter.

“So, then we were walking along the river and Haymond was already covered in mud, like dripping, and Juyeon came along so he dared him to go into the water and as if on cue,” you giggled, harder now that you stopped to really replay the scene you were painting for Eric, “Bartholomew comes up behind Haymond and like pushes against his leg with his nose for Haym falls in.”

At this point, you’ve already given into laughing about the scene, it being the final stretch of a series of ridiculous stories you were subjecting Eric to. You were laid out flat on your bed, stomach down with a pillow underneath your chest as you spoke, absentmindedly scrolling through an app on your laptop. Eric’s chuckles came through, almost in perfect harmony with yours as he came around to responding.

“You sound like you’re actually having fun, y/n. It’s really nice.”

You hummed a note, nodding as you jokingly asked, “am I less sad and depressed, as you liked to put it?”

“To use the word lightly, yeah,” he mused before stopping for a bit. Once he figured out what he wanted to say, he was much softer. “When are we going to hang out again?”

You shrugged, feeling the way the air changed and frowning. “I don’t know.”

“I just- I have something to tell you, is all. I want to do it in person.”

Blinking, completely unknowing, you attempted to ask what it was but Haymond cut you off. With a brief knock, he swung your door open and motioned with his head to come downstairs. “We’re studying, right?”

“Oh, right, shoot,” you muttered, hating how sudden it had to be that you’d leave. Visibly pained, you tried to explain to Eric that you had to go but his usual lightness appeared in his voice again.

“It’s fine, I heard. Good luck on your exams!”

“You too!” you tried to say but the dead tone hit your ears faster. Pouting slightly, you put your phone down and did your usual groan as you got up. Collecting your books as Haymond spoke, you tried to be as quick as possible.

“Was that Eric?”

You nodded, wanting to tell him that Eric said he had something to tell you, but Haymond sighed. With his hands in his pockets and his back against the door, he fixed you with a serious look.

“You know he likes you, right?” The question stung your ears and you hated how matter-of-fact he made it sound. He had no idea what he was talking about and yet it made you give pause.

With your notebooks and textbooks piled in your arms, pencil case the cherry on top, you looked at him seriously and shook your head. “Don’t say that. You don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re-”

“Just friends,” he finished with you, mockingly as he beckoned for you to hurry up into the living room. He shut your door behind you and followed, casual as he spoke. “Well, don’t say I didn’t tell you.”

“Mom and dad aren’t home?” you asked, quick to change the subject as you made your way down the stairs and into the living room where you set up your books. Haymond’s were already laid out on his side of the coffee table and couch. All that was left was Jaehyun and the few other people who were invited to come over to study.

It was agreed upon from all parties that afterwards, when you all finished studying by eight p.m. latest, you were all going to sit down and chat or play games or something. It was meant to be a rather relaxed get-together but the part where it was just going to be you three: you anticipated that the most.

Jaehyun got there moments later and took up residence on the couch beside you, closest to the table. It was a sofa made for two so you were very close- so close you could reach out and link your fingers together. The thought crossed your mind once or twice as you studied away at math and science, both courses you needed Amalia here for the help you with. She was going to be late though, so you switched over to history in hopes that it wouldn’t be too heavy for you. Yet, Jaehyun’s face kept surfacing in your mind and you couldn’t help but steal glances at him.

“What’s that face for?” Jae asked, breaking the silence as he looked over at you.

Your hands shot up to cover your cheeks, pencil laid flat against your skin as you asked, “what face?”

Haymond gave you a look over and chuckled. As he spoke, he returned to twirling his highlighter between his fingers, eyes trained on his work. “You looked like you were daydreaming just second ago.”

“What are you studying?” Jaehyun asked, leaning over to look at your work. Your lack of notes was embarrassing and you were sure he noticed but made no comment. Instead, he looked over at the textbook you had open and let out a small sound. His lips were formed in a perfect circle.

“Trotsky, huh?” he prodded, giving you a small wink. “That’s the kind of man you dream about? Interesting.”

“W-what, no!”

Yet, the laughs had already ensued. He was making a little joke and you were glad for his attention, even if it was a little embarrassing. Deciding against protesting, you tried to work with it but got cut off by the doorbell ringing.

“That’s probably Juyeon,” Haymond groaned, getting up and stretching as he walked to the door. Jaehyun gave you another look, lips soft and turned upwards before he returned to his work. The more he smiled, the more you wanted to leave your work behind and just look at him. It was hard to imagine that he was really right there next to you, just a fraction of an inch away. If you wanted to reach out, you could. You could just take his hand in yours, maybe make his eyes see you only. Maybe-

“I bought iced coffee,” Juyeon proclaimed, looking proud as he set down the tray of four on your coffee table. Instantly, you were pulled out of your stupor and your attention was on another boy, one who looked please with himself for doing something small like getting some coffee. You gave him a wave and told him thank you. The rest of the night felt like a blur.

You may not know it or care but you’re the main feature of my grade ten year. You’re part of almost every fun memory I’ve had in this stupid town. You don’t even know how happy you made me just by doing nothing. I would feel so sad and alone when I was home but then, in an instant, as you came over with some snacks and movies, I was the happiest person alive. I enjoyed being with you so much, through my exam season, in the halls, or just across our lawns when we were both doing nothing but still together. No matter how spontaneous, I

 was happy but I felt so weird too because I just wanted to tell you. I felt so bad not telling you just how much I liked you. I liked you so much it created a ball in my chest and weighed me down. All I wanted was for you to notice how I really feel about you but there wasn’t any chance for me to say it- not that I ever would. You know more than anyone else how scared I am of these things.

Late June, 2016

Happy to be done with school, you and your friends promised to do many things. Yet, the moment exams ended, everyone was too exhausted to do much. You couldn’t blame them necessarily, you were rather sleepy too, it was just that you felt so restless. You wanted to do something, even if it was playing monopoly in your backyard or walking around senselessly but there was no such luck. So, there you were, lying face up on your bed and staring at your ceiling hoping something to do would come to mind.

In the middle of your deep thinking, your phone buzzed once on the nightstand beside your bed. Groaning, you reached behind you and felt around until your fingers grasped the cold metal. Bringing it forwards, you muttered about someone disturbing you and how it was so disrespectful until you saw Jaehyun’s text and immediately bounced up.

Jaehyun, 3:26p.m: open your window

Doing as you were told, you went and propped open the window, hearing the glass squeak as rubber brought it forwards. Leaning forwards and out of it slightly, you caught sight of him on his lawn and he waved.

“Wanna go somewhere?”

You didn’t hesitate to say yes.

Swiftly, you put on a pair of shorts and a long-sleeved shirt, noticing the discrepancy but not necessarily caring in the moment. Your heart was in your throat, pounding like crazy as you kicked your sock drawer closed and bounded down the stairs to get to your shoes. Hearing the commotion, Barly came to the front door with his tail wagging. He looked between you and his leash expectantly. With a quick thought, you reached for his leash, placed it on quickly and slipped your shoes on, ready to go. Jaehyun was sitting on your lawn now, Honey between his hands as he rubbed small circles behind her ears. At the sound of your door opening, he looked behind him and smiled. Quick to get up, he turned on his spot to meet you face on, looking particularly light. He never wore shorts but his pants were of material and fitted well. Just a plain white shirt crossed his midsection, waving in the wind and pressing against his chest to outline lean muscle.

“That was fast,” he noted, but you didn’t have much to say about it.

Looking down and spreading your arms unceremoniously, you asked, “is it good enough for whatever we’re doing?”

“Perfect,” he chimed. Then, he started on his way ahead of you, probably noticing how he stunted you and grinning about it as he walked. Holding onto Barly, who was just happy to be outside, you paused and then began your jog to catch up with him.

As you neared his side, he began to answer the question on your lips. “I wanted to show you the summer fair. It’s kind of small with no rides but all the local shops have little carts where you can get food, there’s cotton candy, vendors and stuff. It’s nice.”

“How long has it been going on for?”

He shrugged, looking up to think. When he squinted because of the high sun, you noticed the slight crinkles in his skin. “I think about five or six years? It’s not new but it’s not old; and definitely not a place lots of people our age go.”

“Why not?” you mumbled, thinking it sounded kind of fun. The sun was also getting in your eyes too, forcing you to squint just as hard.

Looking down at you, he leaned his head so his hair fell just a tad to the side. His eyes were as wide as he could manage and he smiled lightly. “It’s boring unless you know where to go and what to get.”

The second you got there, you understood what he meant. It was on the far side of town which meant the walk was long but it was very calm. He made it easy to talk to him about anything. He felt so akin to Eric sometimes, just in the way his presence seemed to wrap around you and make you feel safe. A few instances, you would bump shoulders and you swore you could see him get just a bit tongue-tied, losing track of his sentence or shifting his feet when you were waiting at a crosswalk; but he recovered well. Keeping his composure, he led you right to the middle of the fair and looked around.

You could only see food vendors and shops for various things like hats, jewelry, and anything small or portable. One place was selling henna tattoos and you were intrigued but Hyun tugged you away, chuckling a bit as he shook his head.

“No, no, that place is really not good for henna.”

“How would you know?” was the question that launched him into a story of how he got dared to get a whole back tattoo in henna and how it was horrible. “I cried myself to sleep that night, no joke,” he finished, though he was laughing as he spoke. You couldn’t help but giggle with him, poking fun at him out of disbelief but also admiration.

Once you got to the other side, the quieter side of the fair, Hyun exhaled and smiled. The only really big line you could see was one for a lemonade stand, which he insisted was the best place to get lemonade from.

“But I don’t like lemonade,” you murmured softly, to which he gave you a really incredulous look before shaking his head at you.

“Well, now you will,” he promised, seeming very intent.

“Can I walk around while you wait in line? I don’t think Honey and Barly will take to being still for so long,” you pointed out, reaching down to pat Barly’s head. The sun was still so high in the sky that even he seemed to be squinting as he lifted his head to reach your touch. Reluctantly, Jaehyun agreed but asked you to stay in this area.

“It’ll be hard to find you afterwards.”

Assuring him you wouldn’t stray too far, you went and started to look at a few shops. There were some games like whack-a-mole that you were interested in and you made mental note of where it was to come back to it. Hopefully it doesn’t cost too much, you thought to yourself before your eyes landed on a psychic’s tent. It was purple and had stars attached to it, with small coins hanging from fabric all around the entrance and skirt of the tent. Without knowing why, you felt drawn towards the place and made you way. Honey and Barly barked a bit but quickly settled down once they reached the tent, being allowed to come inside with you. As you parted the silken material, your nose was exposed to a heavy scent of some type of herb you couldn’t place.

“Welcome,” the woman said sweetly. She was frail and old, sitting at a brown table with a white cloth laced with purple fabric. You found yourself sitting down and looking at her seriously. Presented with playing cards, you were made to exchange something of yours to influence the cards. Then, once she’d given your small ring back to you, she beckoned for you to pick some and she read what they meant to you.

Most of it went over your head but one thing you remembered very vividly. It seemed to even be written on your face as you exited the tent, heaviness in the lines by your mouth. Jaehyun hurried up next to you, extending a hat to you.

“I got these because I couldn’t see you and thought it’s sunny so… hey. You okay?”

Blinking, you glanced up at him and pushed a smile. Though your mind was on her words, you didn’t want to think about it anymore, or worry him. It felt too real to be there but, for the most part, you never believed in stuff like that. You wanted to go in as a joke. Looking behind you, Hyun smiled.

“Did you talk to Lady Enya? She scares a lot of people.”

Wrapping your fingers around the hat, all you did was murmur thank you and nod. Then, slowly, you managed, “she said some freaky shit.”

“Do you believe it?” His question was serious but you could tell he wanted to keep things light. After a shrug of yours, he extended the large lemonade bottle and hummed, “okay well here, have some. It’ll make you feel better.”

Gasping, trying to make a joke as you regained your grip on reality, you mused, “that’s exactly what she said you’d say.”

Laughing, though somewhat nervous, Jae said, “shut up.”

“Oh my god, that too!”

You pointed at him while your free hand grasped the lemonade to have a sip. He began laughing now, noticing how your skin lit up and laughed. Leading you and the dogs away, you began to talk about whack-a-mole and left the situation behind you.

Once the sun started to get low in the sky, Hyun suggested going home. He mentioned something about exhausting all his resources and you immediately apologized, offering to pay him back but he shook his head no.

“I told you to come out, so it’s fine.” He looked confident in his answer. Immediately, you wanted to point out that this wasn’t a date but something stopped you. Even if he did invite you out, he didn’t have to pay.

Chewing on this, you fell slightly silent on the way home. He didn’t seem to mind it, not needing to say much either. Instead, he stopped and let Barly and Honey off their leashes, calling them back every few moments to train them off-leash. You paid attention to him and the dogs, being soft but firm. They seemed to really listen. You once heard that someone who loves animals has to be kind-hearted. Silently, you thought of how much warmth was within his heart and who could possibly abandon him.

Thinking of his parents leaving him home often made you hurt. You wondered how often he felt like he wasn’t enough. He would text you and ask to come over and you thought it was just to hang out but maybe it was to fill a void he felt. Stepping a few paces behind him to watch him well, you felt like you could see him so much clearer. It made your heart well. With all this hurt, he was still as kind as ever. It was hard to imagine. You doubted you would be as nice as him in his circumstances.

“You okay?” he asked, turning his head to see you stopped in your tracks. Your jaw, which had dropped slightly, came back into place as you tried to compose yourself. With a nod, you hurried up beside him and murmured about something being on your mind. When he asked what, you felt it might be inappropriate so you said something else, trying to cover it all up.

“Well, I was just thinking about what the psychic would have said to you. You’re really good with dogs and all, it might have some supernatural reason.” The fib was easy enough to make, though you did feel a bit bad about it. Maybe you shouldn’t have lied and let the opportunity to talk about something genuinely serious slip but you had to. It wasn’t your place to ask him. Deep down, you felt this was the right choice.

Thinking hard, though letting his laughs get the most of him as he spoke, he began, “she’d probably be like ‘oh, you are one with the dog. Your ancestors lived in caves and were werewolves. You were grown up on the soil and a natural hunter.”

As he continued his little schpiel, he became more and more dramatic, and it made you laugh. With your elbow, you touched his side and told him to be quiet. His eyes became the biggest crescents as he giggled; he was so perfect, he looked almost drawn. Once that subsided, he asked if you still had the cotton candy which he’d got earlier on. It was in a plastic bag which you pressed into your small backpack and you struggled to get out.

Without hesitation, you both began to share the bag and talked as you did so, his voice not letting you slip into your mind again. He enjoyed to share things, even if they were meaningless, but you loved to listen to what he said. Slowly, you stopped eating and just let him talk, watching as he kept his animated voice all throughout a story or listened to your small responses.

“Can you hold this for a second?” he mumbled, looking ahead and calling for the dogs to stop. Doing as you were asked, you came to a pause as he handed you the bag. Your houses were beginning to show just behind him and you nearly asked why he’d stopped but then his fingers curled around your sleeves and began cuffing them.

“They’ll get dirty from the sugar,” he said so absentmindedly. Then, he quickly dropped your hands and plucked the bag from your fingers. Entirely embarrassed, you brought one hand up to your face and felt the heat there. This time, you couldn’t blame it on the sun, since the bill of your cap stretched far enough to cover most of your cheeks and nose.

“W-what did you do that for?” The question was asked even though you knew the answer he gave. From the side of your eye, you saw his face turn to see you, his smile so soft. Though most of his face was shrouded from the cap, the sun hardly any help as it rested its cheeks against the hills of your little town, you could tell there was something changed in his eyes.

Softly, his fingers came to twist with yours, fitting in the spaces between yours. He was so light, so careful to not make you do anything you didn’t want to do. You didn’t know how to say that this was what you wanted to do the whole day, how you’d thought of holding his hand and bringing him closer almost everyday you spent together. So, you didn’t say anything at all. You simply closed your fingers around his. At this, he brought you the slightest bit closer and you walked home together, blind to how silly and large your smile was.

I truly cherish every moment we’ve spent together. We would walk around doing nothing and feel like we were doing the most daring things. We were alive but I felt like we were really existing.  I sound like a stupid romance novel but it was hard not to romanticize everything about you. You were and are so present in my mind that I have to write this to let you go. I can’t be with you and we both know that. When you let go of my hand, I could see it in your eyes. You couldn’t do it again and neither could I. I can’t sit there and fall for you more and more. God, is this even love?

I don’t know the answer to that. All I know is you overwhelm me and make me so nervous. I’m glad for everything we’ve done but I don’t think I can take anymore. I want to be free of it. I like you so much that I can’t take it. Please take it away from me. Please.

From y/n y/l/n. On June 28th, 2016.

The oven beeping snapped Jaehyun out of his head. Quickly, he moved to take the chicken strips out, nearly forgetting to put on oven mitts. He was so wrapped up in what you’d written. He was sure you’d done this at the time yo’d written it. It was so fresh in your mind then that every moment you described- he could feel them. He was there, watching you watch him. He could imagine it all, reading how you felt and pairing it with his heart.

Two years ago. It was so confusing back then. He had so many emotions but he didn’t know what they meant only that he liked you too; but then there was age and college. He wasn’t going to be here and you were going to forget. You were right and he hated that. He hated that, in his eyes, it was over before it started. He wished it wasn’t like that. He wanted to see you but  it wasn’t that easy now, was it? You were dating someone now and he couldn’t get between that. He even saw you at Christmas. You seemed so happy.

Frustrated, Jaehyun practically tossed the tray onto his counter, the metal shaking in its spot. The sound resonated through his empty house.

[arrianna21]

~Alchemy et Chaos~

Exploring caves, ruins, and abandoned forts is something you enjoy doing. Normally you do it by yourself, but that changes when your mage friend asks to join you on your latest expedition.

Game: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Note: Little bit of gore

Word Count: 4,123

You collect the Morning Glory pulp and put it away while you continue your search. Figuring that 15 pieces of the flower would suffice, you stand up and make your way to the fort’s entrance before stepping inside. This is the last place you needed to search thankfully. As much as you enjoyed looting and exploring various caves and forts, the constant searching for plants and ingredients was becoming a bit tedious.

Normally you would never do this for free, but if it was for your quirky mage friend you would gladly do it without any pay. Especially considering the fact that he had returned the favor multiple times by creating, and giving you, free potions.

The strong metal doors open to reveal the stone walls, free of any torches or light whatsoever. Crouching down, you sneak down the steps and peek through the already open door. A dog was walking back and forth further down the hall, occasionally sniffing the ground before moving on. You keep your knees bent, walking quietly toward the animal and set a piece of venison near it, stepping carefully down another hall where there is a closed gate. It was locked and you use a lock pick, fiddling with it until you hear a click.

Pushing the doors open, you go inside and find a chest with some gold which you happily take. Going back to the intersection, you find the dog eating the raw meat, tearing large chunks out of it and you pass by to the other locked gate. Unlocking that as well, you find another chest with gold.

Continuing on down the main hall, there are three paths each going a separate direction. You contemplate going left or right, but decide to just walk towards the gate in front where you can hear voices. The metal gate is unlocked and upon entering, you find yourself at a balcony overlooking the area. A group of bandits and marauders are below and two of them are arguing to each other.

From what you can hear, they seem to be talking about a deal gone wrong. No one has noticed you yet so you decide to explore the area first.

Going to the left, there’s a small bridge that leads to a locked chest. Opening it reveals more gold and you head to the right where another short bridge leads to a similar locked chest that is also filled with gold.

As you walk back across the bridge, someone yells from below before chaos erupts. Thinking your cover has been blown, you run back to the balcony and find the large group has divided into two separate ones where the bandits and marauders begin killing each other. This actually makes things easier for you and so you stand at the railing while you enjoy the show. You have to actually stifle a laugh when a bandit accidentally shoots her friend instead of the marauder.

When most of them are dead, except for two bandits, you head to the right first and activate a turn handle that opens a metal gate. Walking down the stairs, you see a chest with two potions of healing inside. Rummaging through the box alerts the bandit nearby.

He yells upon seeing you and you pull your short sword out while fighting him.“Is that the best you can do?” the bandit asks as he wields his hammer at you.

Your response is to merely swing your sword, saying nothing while you hit his armor. After a few more hits, the elf crumples into the water and you huff. That’s the second body you would have to loot in the lake, the first being another marauder who was floating face down.

“You’ll regret stepping foot in here!” the bandit archer yells and a green arrow whizzes by you.

Turning around, you see her shooting from across the fort as she stands on a ledge. Muttering under your breath you grab your arrows and begin firing in return. Each arrow that sinks into her shocks her with lightning and it doesn’t take much before she also dies.

After looting another chest and a female marauder, who didn’t have anything impressive, you swim through the middle of the water, searching the rest of the bodies until you reach the other side. There’s another chest near a dead bandit Hedge Wizard that has 745 gold pieces and some repair hammers.

Other than the plants outside the entrance, Fort Nikel didn’t have much for your mage friend so you decide to leave after coaxing the dog outside, making your way back to the city of Chorrol.

Despite the simple dungeon, you were glad it was your last for this adventure, wanting to go back to your home so you could wash up and sleep for a few hours. Upon returning to the city, you stop by the blacksmith so she can repair your armor. After having a range of monsters and people alike attacking you, it was better to fix it before it had the chance to break completely.

Walking past the Great Oak tree in the center of town, you see Dar-Ma and chat with her for a bit. While you and the reptile Argonian talk about some new items her mother brought to their store, there is an explosion from one of the houses. Looking around in confusion, you watch as a small plume of smoke exits a house in the circle. That house just so happened to be yours and you automatically figure out the cause.

Saying goodbye to your friend, you walk to your house as the townsfolk stare with concern though you smile reassuringly. Pushing your front door open, you walk through the living room and immediately head upstairs to the guest room where you find the mage desperately fanning the room.

“Experiment gone wrong?” you ask and your voice startles him as he whips around to face you.

“Y/N! Back so soon?” the man chuckles awkwardly, not having expected you home for at least a few days.

“I’ve been gone for two days, Joon.”

“Right! Ah, how was your journey?” he abandons his post at the window when you hold out your treasure findings.

“Eventful for the most part,” you admit, describing the encounters you faced at the two forts and one Ayleid ruin.

“Good eventful I hope,” he says, organizing the various flora extracts on his desk.

You nod your head somewhat in agreement. “Besides the usual monsters, each location did have something unique. I did find this iron dagger for you.” Grabbing the weapon, you hand it to the surprised mage.

“Are you sure you don’t need this?” he asks, carefully taking it in his hands.

“Don’t fret, Joon. I found it on some treasure hunt that someone must have left behind.” You tell him about the strange note on top of one of the forts that was next to a sword pointing off in the distance. Following the note and the sword’s direction, it didn’t take you long before you found a chest near a boulder where the dagger sat. “I can even enchant it for you later if you would like.”

“Ahh, you don’t have to do that. You’re already busy enough.” Joon replies, clearly flustered by your offer and you roll your eyes.

“You know I don’t mind. Anyway, what were you trying to make?” you ask, referring to the opened window and cluttered desk oozing with various potions and ingredients.

“That? I’m trying to make a new potion, but it’s not going too well.” Joon rubs the back of his head, sitting on his bed with a faint grimace.

Joon, while intelligent beyond compare, was still learning the ins and outs of alchemy. He could easily make small potions, but he also liked to try his hand with more complex and new mixtures that only some high class mages could perfect.

“Taking a rest from that paper?”

You knew his thesis, while tedious, was not very difficult for him, but he needed to make sure he had enough evidence gathered to prove his point. After you had foiled the plans for the Mythic Dawn cult who attempted to take over Tamriel by opening Oblivion gates, Joon noticed a rise in Conjurers going rogue. He believes that certain factions are attempting to summon more Daedra and use them to gain control of the Imperial City. Not as bad as trying to take over all the land like the former cult, but still a problem nonetheless. Unfortunately, he needed to write a substantial paper discussing and proving his hypothesis.

He sighs before nodding. “I’ve made great progress, it’s over halfway completed, I just need a few more things for research purposes.”

“Like what?”

“They’re not too complicated--we can talk about it some other time. Are you hungry? I’m sure you’re hungry I mean you just returned from a long journey.” The man stands up abruptly and heads downstairs while talking and you silently follow after him. “I went out to buy some cheese and bread while you were away. They had some watermelon too.”

You watch as he begins gathering food from the kitchen and also setting the table for you.

“Joon,” you call to which he responds by looking up at you, bread hovering above the plate.

“Yes?”

“What do I need to get for you?” you ask, helping him set the table with more food. It was very early for supper, only the afternoon, but because of your erratic schedule neither of you ate at a set time, meal times changing daily.

“Just some Daedra things,” he replies cryptically.

Digging through a cupboard for some brandy, you begin grabbing some bottles. “Well if it’s Daedric stuff you need I don’t mind going to my house in Cheydinhal for those.”

“I appreciate the offer, Y/N, but those won’t work. They need to be…fresh.”

You lift your head up and shut the door with your boot, bottles clutched in your hands. “Oh,” immediately understanding his dilemma. “I see. Which Ayleid ruin do I need to go to?”

Sitting down, your armor and weapons clang against the chairs loudly which results in you standing back up before running upstairs to change and put your things away. A few minutes later, you return with a simple shirt and pants, going back to your seat so you can resume your conversation.

“That’s the thing. I wanted to ask you something,” he tells you while you start eating with fervor. Taking large chunks out of your loaf of bread, you urge him to continue and he does. “I want you to take me with you.” The sentence rushing out of him in a large gust as the mage resorts to gulping down his drink.

Once you finish swallowing, the bread halfway gone, you take a swig of alcohol to wash down your food. “Okay. We leave at 6:00 in the morning tomorrow.”

Your casual response causes Joon to choke and he coughs on his drink. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I said I’ll escort you,” you say, munching on a cheese wedge, the dairy flavor mixing with the wheat bread.

“You just got back from a quest. Wouldn’t it be best to wait a few days?” he asks in concern.

You shake your head. “Do we need to? If you have everything prepared, I’ll be ready as well. I don’t need much anyway.”

“I almost have everything. I wasn’t expecting such a quick answer to be honest,” he admits shyly.

Nodding, you continue eating and when your mouth isn’t full you respond. “Why? It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

“I don’t wish to burden you,” he replies and you wave him away.

“Joon, it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” You reassure him until he eventually acquiesces.

Once that is settled, the two of you talk about the rest of your journey and your encounters, laughing at the things you saw and witnessed. The next morning you both wake up early as you prepare for the hike to the Gold Road not too far south. Apparently there was rumor of a large Ayleid ruin by the name of Ceyatatar in that area where Conjurers were doing questionable things.

While you gather your weapons and him his potions, you are soon leaving the city gates as you begin walking. Staying on the main path to avoid any wild animals, the long walk is uneventful and you make small talk on the way.

Arriving later on that morning, you are immediately greeted by two Conjurers accompanied by

Xivilai. You battle the blue Daedra humanoids while Joon tosses some spells at the robed man and woman. One of the demons manages to summon a Clannfear while you slash at him with your sword. The spawned reptilian creature lashes out with its claws, but you ignore it, remaining focused on the Xivilai instead. Once it’s killed, the reptile also vanishes and you run to the other demon, sword meeting its giant Warhammer. It dies as well and when you turn to check on your friend he is throwing a bolt of lightning at the last Conjurer who screams before falling over.

“Here’s a potion of healing if you need it,” he tells you, giving the small vial to you and you put it away, deciding to save it for now while you cast a minor restoration spell on yourself.

“Thanks. I assume this is one of the things you need.” You say, looking down at the dead Daedra beside you. When he nods, you jerk your head to the other body. “Take care of that one and I’ll handle this one here,” you direct him while pulling out your dagger.

You pierce the Xiviliai’s flesh, cutting into it deeply, dark blood painting the grass around it as you separate the hard bones so you can pry the Daedra’s heart out. Standing up, you step over the body so you can check the Conjurers where you then steal a few healing and magika potions. Joon finishes with the corpse as well and after checking the surrounding area, you find no other enemies and head to the center of the crumbling ruin before walking down the spiral staircase.

“How many do you need?” you ask, opening the white door at the bottom and gesturing him inside.

“As many as possible,” is all he says and you shrug.

Entering the dark ruins, there are more stairs in front of you and a bridge with a small railing overlooking the main room below. You pull him down when you see the Conjurer walking around, urging him to remain silent. He follows behind you as you go down the stairs until you reach the archway. You stay crouched and make your way to the woman now standing in front of a wooden table, fiddling with some alchemy tools. Drawing your sword, you wait until you are directly behind her and then you swing hard. She grunts before falling over and you stand straight when the room is clear.

Joon comes forward to look around the room while you loot the body, but finding nothing in her robes. Examining the item on the table, you see the alchemy equipment on the wood along with some ingredients, one of which being another Daedra heart. A book was also hidden under the equipment and you inspect the cover with the title reading, “The Book of Daedra.” You show the book to Joon who takes it and flips through the pages while you continue looking around the candlelit workspace. The bookshelf nearby just has random objects, a human skull, plates, and crystal ball.

“I’m not surprised they have this,” the mage’s voice bounces around the cavern. “If they’re summoning Daedra, it would be expected that they would also have books about the demonic creatures.” He explains before putting the book into his bag.

Moving on, you see another staircase leading further down. Reaching the bottom, you see a Frost Atronach down the hall. Again, you sneak up to it and hit the ice giant hard where it easily falls over. You continue down more stairs while Joon collects the frost salts the giant elemental leaves behind upon killing it. There are more Conjurers and Frost Atronachs so you again sneak towards them in the hopes of taking them by surprise.

As you step closer on the cracked floor, there’s a harsh rumbling and you are abruptly yanked back as stones collapse in front of you. You hadn’t thought to look above you to see the rocks falling from the ceiling. The Conjurers turn around to investigate the noise only to find you and the mage struggling to get to your feet on the stairwell. One shouts and begins pelting you with magic while you try to grab your sword and run across, climbing over the fallen rubble.

You hit the ice giants first and there’s a spell flying behind you as Joon retaliates with an attack of his own, engaging with the dark mages. An Atronach almost crushes you with its cold hands but you jump back, whacking at it harshly. The creatures are harder to eliminate because they weren’t taken by surprise, but eventually you manage to kill them and Joon does the same.

Before you have a chance to investigate the area, a bolt of lightning shoots past you as a Storm Atronach bellows down the hall. Joon throws a frost spell at it and the rock monster collapses in a pile of rubble.

“Good shot,” you compliment to which he blushes, his dimples becoming more prominent as he smiles.

“Thank you,” he says and you laugh, finding his shyness endearing.

You search all the bodies while the man walks over to a table in the far corner and looks around. Collecting all the salts and potions, you find two coffers next to them that hold some gold. After gathering the treasure, you join your friend who has also found some more ingredients on another table, along with the same red book about the Daedra.

“It seems like all the Conjurers are reading this book,” you note.

“I believe so. They need to learn about the creatures if they’re going to summon them.” He explains and you both continue to the door that leads further into the ruin.

This next area is just a small cavern with enormous rocks protruding in various places and a

waterfall in the middle, guarded only by one Conjurer who is quickly dispatched. Crossing the bridge, you look at the slanted rock leading into the water and tell Joon you’ll be back while he collects the dead mage’s potions. When you dive in the pool, you swim around and check for any treasure. As you swim underneath, you find a tunnel that leads to a wooden door.

Going through, you rise to the surface for a short breath of air and see a body across the trench. It’s a dead treasure hunter, you realize as you examine the fur clothing. He only has a few pieces of gold and you check the coffer next to him that has some soul gems and a scroll. Joon would be interested in that, you think as you securely tuck it away in your bag so the water doesn’t destroy it. Swimming back to the other area, you show the mage your findings and move on to the next door.

You head down the stairwell and open the gate that leads to a big room with a Conjurer and more Daedra. Whispering to each other, you discuss your plan of action which is pretty much the same as it has been, he’ll handle the magic user while you take care of the demons. Even though you try to sneak up to the Xivilai, the Conjurer seems to sense your presence the moment you slip into the threshold.

Ducking behind a stone pillar, you dodge the flames as they fly into a wall before dissipating. Joon runs out and retaliates with his own spell, the ice crackling when it hits the dark mage. With the element of surprise gone, you swing at the blue demon with your sword, cutting into its torso. Blood spurts out from the wound and it growls, throwing a bolt of lightning, but it is absorbed by your armor. The other Xivilai also comes to its companion’s aid and at one point you are battling two demons simultaneously. It’s not long though as the first monster falls and you focus solely on the remaining one, hitting it repeatedly until it also dies.

Hearing a loud hiss, you see a Daedroth attacking Joon, the large crocodile monster swiping with its claws. Running to the other fight, you switch to your enchanted sword and hit the beast. Ice damages its scaly body and the Daedra turns its attention to you, allowing the mage to return to his battle with the Conjurer Adept.

The Daedroth tries to bite you, teeth nearly sinking into your face but you back away, stepping around until you are behind the creature where you can effectively swing at its back. The crocodile-like monster turns around and breathes fire to which you jump out of the way. A male’s yell rings in the cavern, your heart stopping in fear at the sound, but when the Daedroth fades away you sigh.

You see Joon cleaning his dagger on the Conjurer’s robes before taking the potions he had in his pockets and turning to collect some Welkynd stones sitting on the corner pedestals. Doing the same to the Xivilai, you extract their organs and explore the room. Some chests and coffers hold more gold, along with spell scrolls, soul gems, and another book.

“Joon, have you heard of this book?” you ask and the mage walks over to you.

He takes the gold book and inspects it carefully. “Summon Dremora Tome?” Joon turns the pages and skims through it quickly. “Oh, this is not good. This is a manual on how to summon all kinds of Daedra. Apparently, that includes a Dremora Lord.”

Your eyes widen as you look over his shoulder to see the ancient text. Cursing lowly, you turn to continue checking the area. “You better take that to the High Council with your paper.”

“I know. If the Conjurers learn the secrets to summoning such powerful beings, the Oblivion gates could open all over again. Only this time we have no King to fight for us.”

Your friend sighs harshly and while you look through the locked prison cells, you find an Orc’s body sprawled inside one. “It might be best to make note of this as well,” you advise to him.

Joon turns in your direction and stares at the dead captive. “I will add that to my list of notes as proof that these Conjurers are surely crossing boundaries.”

“Maybe we can send for the guards so this man can have a proper burial.” You tell him, going to another cell where a coffer sits inside. Opening the gates, you step inside and collect more gold.

Continuing your walk around the area, you see a blue stone block in the wall and upon pressing it, the moving cobble next to it reveals a hidden pathway as the stones drop down one by one.

Both of you crawl across and you see two more coffers next to a short ladder leading to a trap door. The small caskets hold over 500 pieces of gold along with some more scrolls and soul gems. You climb up the ladder first with Joon close behind and you find that you are outside in the Great Forest.

Beginning the walk back to Chorrol, you are both silent and contemplative, each lost in your thoughts.

“Y/N?” Joon calls your name after a minute.

You hum in response.

“Do you…think it would be possible for me to start coming with you on your explorations?”

“Why? Do you perhaps enjoy my presence that much?” you chuckle in amusement.

“N-no! I mean, yes, I enjoy your presence, er-company, but I also feel that it is necessary to see what all these Conjurers are doing in person.” The mage stumbles through his statement and you laugh aloud.

“I am only joking, Joon. Of course you are free to join me whenever you like.”

The man also laughs in return, walking beside you while offering an apple for a snack. You take the sweet fruit and bite into it. As you continue through the forest, you chat while pausing every now and then so the mage can collect some flower samples along the way while you carry on to prepare for your next quest.

A/N: It’s finally complete! I was really happy to write about this game because it is my all-time favorite and it has a special place in my heart. Oblivion is just…glorious and so much fun, it’s great, I love it so so much. Anyway this wraps up the last story in the VideoGame!BTS miniseries. If you enjoyed it, please send me some feedback, I would really like to know your thoughts. Thank you again for reading, I really appreciate you all sticking with me through this series!

[monomas-a-smug-bih]

Apocalyptic Chaos V :Twilight Drives

Part 5

..:::::..

“Are you FUCKING SERIOUS?!”

My shoulders dropped as I let out a sigh. Of course there’d something to carry all these supplies and food in a school, right? Wrong. The only backpacks and bags available were either in locked lockers or still latched onto dead students, which we weren’t too keen on looting. And after Izuku had shown us everything the cafeteria had to offer, they were kind of needed badly.

“My lord can you puh-leez shut up,” I threw him some jazz hands for extra sass. “you know before you attract a freaking herd and kill us all. Which would be fantastic if you ask me.” I sent an innocent smile to piss him off a little more. I saw his shoulders raise, getting ready to walk over and knock me out right away.

But sweet Izuku cut in, “Hey guys, calm down, p-please?” Blondie scoffed, about to snap.

“Why the hell can’t we just pop open a few lockers? We need to take something unless you idiots are still stuck on starving to fucking death.” I rolled my eyes, seeing Izuku send me a questioning glance.

“We can’t.”

“Why the fuck not?!”

“The noise! You hot-head!” Bakugou seemed offended,

“This again?! You stopped me before too woman! Stop getting in my way!”

“Then stop making dumbass plans!” Suddenly he was in front of me glaring down.

“The fuck ’d you just call me?” I challenged him with a step forward.

“Maybe if you were listening, you’d realize I didn’t call you an-“

“N-noise?” We blinked and both glared at Izuku, surprised by the interruption. He rubbed the back fo his neck. “A-ah sorry sorry! I just don’t know what you mean by n-noise.” I made an O with my mouth, secretly glad he was there to cut in. Bakugou beat me to it,

“Those monsters seem to follow it. They run around like blind idiots until they hear something, idiot.” I slid in an unenthusiastic ‘yeah’ slightly sad to have my thunder stolen. He motioned from Midoriya to me,

“That’s why, I’m trying to tell this idiot busting open tiny lockers won’t be a big enough deal to get us killed.” I murmured, ‘whatever tough guy.’ His head whipped to me.

“HAH?! I give you an explanation and you’re STILL complaining?” He shut his eyes and grabbed the bridge of his nose, turning away to walk towards the lockers. He placed a palm against one of them, holding terrifying eye contact with me, dead serious. My breath caught as I felt panic arise in me. Come on. This is fine.

“W-wait Kacchan-“ Izuku flailed his arms nervously. I dashed to get my weapon leaning against the wall, an explosion and the squeaks of distressed metal reaching my ears. Come on. The locker door bent out of shape leaned and eventually fell from its frame. Swiftly, ‘Kacchan’ caught it in one hand, seemingly never taking his eyes off of me with a smirk. I narrowed my eyes, what a cocky little-

“It’s fine, don’t be so paranoid alright?” attitude filled bra- “Hey, catch.” I dropped my plank and he tossed me the door. “That plank’s so shitty you may as well add this to your collection.” Grrrr... Izuku switched glances from the both of us confused by the weird exchange.

“Alright Baku-brat, lets go and not run into any zombies, k?” I tossed it back, completely fine with my deadly plank of wood. Then walked ahead of the two, preparing for the worst as I got closer to the corner. “Since I’m completely helpless.”

“Y/n! Wait up!” I heard Midoriya take the locker door and run up behind me. This doesn’t seem right. Something told me Bakugou’s method wouldn’t be so easy. I clutched my weapon, dashing ahead again to prove myself a little selfishly. Almost turning the corner, blinding flames lit up the corridor, forcing me to a screeching halt and back off. The fire retreated back to its person, leaving dark ash staining the walls in its wake. Which gave me an opportunity to hit him. I hoped for an opening jumped around the corner, slamming my raised plank downwards. Dammit! Hoping for it’s head to connect, I got caught onto its shoulder instead. I ripped hard at my plank, causing rotten flesh to fall from its form. Disgusting. Seeing it took closer to the right of the hall, I dashed passed its left before he could turn me to ashes, jumping out of he way. Flames covered the place I’d been standing a few moments ago, lighting up the hall as a few worried calls from the boys reached my ears. The fire decorated the walls with dancing shadows, making me even more uneasy. While I was at its back, I turned my body to ready myself like I was about to swing a baseball bat. I refused to hesitate, I wouldn’t die at the hands of one of these things. I am not defenceless. It let out an unpleasant gurgling cry and slowly turned to me again. Look at me. I screamed with the strength I had left and swung as hard as my muscles would allow. I won’t be helpless anymore! So hard the plank connected with the side of its head, and practically nailed it to the other wall. It’s deformed face oozed reds and greens, I unhooked the nail in disgust and tried not to think about it too much. It went limp and hit the floor.

Izuku rounded the corner hastily, “Y/N! Are you o-“ his eyes sunk to the collapsed body on the floor. “O-oh.” Bakugou appeared next, grabbing Izuku by the shirt to shove him away so he could see. I couldn’t exactly read his slightly shocked expression, but he didn’t look too pleased.

“Dammit.” He stared down at it in deep thought, tightening his fists and hand on a pipe in disbelief, up until he threw it away to clatter and roll at my feet. The rise and fall of his shoulders grew faster and more desperate. He looked to the ceiling, and he pumped his fists at his sides, “Fuck!” then leaned into the wall after giving it a defeated punch. Seeming to truly realize the hopeless situation we were all in. “What the fuck is this!” One way or another, we were all trapped. Whether it be in here waiting to get infected, or in the husks outside, trapped inside the body of one of those things with no control over ourselves. I could hear a subtle hint of fear in his voice. “Are you fucking serious!” It hurt to see him like this. I could tell by his state he now felt just as useless and trapped as I did. To feel defenceless, it makes you feel like a naive idiot. Some damsel in distress, who’s only use is to make people feel better about themselves. That’s how I felt. But I’m not like that anymore, I’m not helpless, and Bakugou isn’t defenceless, he needs to know that. I walked over, and if one of them heard the locker, surely they’d heard his complaining.

“Bakugou.” He didn’t react, keeping his glare on the wall. I touched his wrist, getting him to look me in the eyes. “Bakugou, please.” He surprisingly didn’t pull away, letting me calm him down with my quirk. His eyes flashed with light going from dark red to blue, returning to normal when I let go. He let out a sigh and shuddered, letting the light in his palms reduce to smoke. Izuku looked at us worryingly. He leaned over and picked up his rusted pipe, and stepped back from the wall, starting back to where I’d come from. We just followed on edge more than ever.

..:::::..

We made our way back to the locker, devoid of any more attacks from those things. Bakugou stuck a hand in, curious I peek inside. He tugged out a ragged looking bag, he handed it to me and I decided to check it out. Surprisingly, it was in better condition than I thought. It just seemed ragged from all the dust it’d collected since then. I shook it off and plopped it onto the floor. Unzipping it, I was greeted by some items. A pencil case, a textbook, nothing too exciting, other than a stale looking chip bag. Papers, more papers, loose pencils and erasers, ooh! I spotted some snacks near the bottom, some airtight sealed granola bars and a Rice Krispy. Better than nothing I guess. I looked up to the boys going through the locker, a couple binders and textbooks were tossed onto the floor. Izuku smiled at a water bottle, it was about 3/4 of the way full. I glanced back to my job, unzipping some more pockets. This backpack had at least seventy of them. Finding most of them were empty and small, I sighed. One more left! Come on baby! I slowly unzipped a small pocket on the back, digging my hand in to find- nothing. Ugh! Darn it!

“Any luck y/n?” I frowned at Izuku, getting up and accidentally knocking the backpack over in the process. Then I heard it.

//CLINK CLINK\\

I liked to the noise of metal of metal. I spotted a ring of keys, one looking to be for a vehicle.

“HAhA! Hell yes!” I snatched the keys and pumped my fist in the air. Finally something!

“The hell are you on about?” I smiled at the blonde, spinning the ring on keys on one finger. Meanwhile Izuku beamed.

“Y/n you’re amazing! Maybe we’ll find a ride out of here in the school parking lot!” Bakugou clued in after our exchange, subtly grinning a little. He looked relieved. He wouldn’t feel trapped once we got outta here, that gave me relief too.

..:::::..

Eventually, we gave in to Bakugou. Whether it’s kill us or not, we kinda did need more than one bag, so a backpack of junkfood and stuff from the cafeteria each, we made it out of the building. Which startled all three of us. Suddenly the sky was near pitch black, a blanket of darkness smothering the formerly warm hues of sunset. I felt a shiver run down my arms. Not good.

“H-hey.” I turned to a shaky looking Bakugou, he looked me in the eye sternly. “Get, the keys. Don’t move.” He whispered, turning to Deku on the last part. I slowly dug into my pocket, praying I wouldn’t drop them with my clammy fingers. I quickly found the black one that looked to be for a car, trying my best o ignore the few shadowy figures I saw in my peripheral vision. I looked at Bakugou, the spooked teen looked to me waiting in suspense. I looked forward to the almost deserted school parking lot, lacking in the cars of the lucky ones that got out of this mess early. The gravel under my foot seemed louder than anything in the silence of twilight, as I stepped forward. I stealthily did it again, finally raising my arm with the keys. I flinched, keeping one eye open as I put pressure on the button. The chime of an opened vehicle met my ears, along with the orange, white and red light I received from it. I saw it right away, it was in the corner of the lot, practically begging me to sprint and get into to the sweet safety of a vehicle. I turned back to the boys, who’s heads flipped to the side right away.

“Uraaaaagh-raaagh-REEUHHAHG.” Screeches could be heard from areas of the lot unknown to us, thanks to the pitch black. We shook in fear and all made eye contact, practically screaming at each other ‘run!’. So we all sprinted down the parking lot, like crazy looking teenagers frantically dashing to the only light they could see in the blind darkness. We were all nearing the car, so far so good. I could see the shape of the car instead of just it’s lights now, since I was closer, I decided to click the ‘quick start’ button in a frenzy of panic. It gave me an even better view of my destination, only for it to be blocked within seconds, a tall figure stumbling in front of me. My heart sunk immediately. I tried not to scream, so I froze with my hands full, unsure what to do as it turned to me and I screeched to a halt.

“H-hah-uh.” My pants and breath turned into a shaky mess of broken words, I trembled, surrendering to the power of fear and the dark with widened eyes of terror. I heard more somewhere around the lot, making me feel even more screwed, and my anxiety and fear sky rocketed. Hearing someone curse under their breath I flinched, feeling a hand grab my waist and push me away to cut infront of me. I heard the bounce of a backpack and he let out a ferocious grunt, raising his steel pipe over his shoulder and smacking it upside the head mercilessly. It wobbled to recover, only for Bakugou to rise higher and hit it again, the singing of flying metal filling the parking lot. My eyes were dragged from the now bloody pavement I could see under the car’s headlights when Bakugou turned to me. I caught his determined ruby red eyes revealed form behind his spiky blonde hair, wondering if he’d got the several ‘thank yous’ I just screamed in my head for his existence. That was too close. He didn’t wait for me to react and snatched my arm and ran with me, throwing my body into the car for good measure, just in case I was still frozen and stupid. Izuku followed in shortly, practically belly flopping across the back seats and scrambling to slam the door on a frantic mission of survival. Realizing I was in the passengers seat, I panicked and threw the keysto Bakugou, who got the thing driving almost immediately after yanking the gear shift. I heard shuffling and a struggling ‘WAIT!-‘ from the back followed by an equally struggling ‘DIEEEEE!’ as I was flung back into my seat with the sudden force of movement. Bakuboy had stomped onto the gas peddle, almost killing all three of us by randomly shooting us forward. I recovered and sat up, bringing my focus to the front window. Immediately seeing a chain link fence fading from black and coming right for us!

I jumped out of my seat, dove for the his side, and sharply yanked the steering wheel my way.

“DAMMIT BAKUBOY!!!” Causing us all to lean to the left in the tilting vehicle from the sharp turn. I was still terrified and cautious, but I heard Izuku sigh in relief and let go of my leathery seat. The headlights eventually lit up the exit, and he once again slammed his foot down, but a little softer this time. I braved myself by clutching my armrest. We zoomed off of school grounds. Making it to the street, which for some reason gave Bakagou the ‘a-okay’ to speed us through town, frightening both of his passengers. I sighed, for some reason, the air grew thick and tense. So I broke the silence as usual,

“T-that,” I couldn’t hide the lingering excitement of adrenaline in my voice. “was fucking insane.” I’ve never done anything like that before. Looting a school and jacking someone’s ride! This is crazy! I shook my head, “Nevermind, this is fucking insane.” I laughed, feeling a little victorious. “We made it!” I didn’t see Bakugou smirk, but I could tell he took my talking as permission to be loud.

“FINALLY, FUCKING FREEDOM!” Despite only being in UA for a couple hours, he sounded ecstatic. I looked to the boy driving, who currently reminded me of a canine with his head sticking out of a car window. He’d rolled down his window, making the air swish his blonde and already messy hair everywhere and over his forehead with the dumbest grin on his face. I stared a little flustered at how good he looked smiling like this. What a cute little pup.

I giggled and mumbled without thinking, “Heh! Remind me not to put you on a leash.” I got a ‘pfft!’ Out of him and a giggle from Izuku in the back.

“The fuck’d you say baby?!” He turned to me without a care in the world, half-laughing. My breath caught in my throat and the car went silent. I felt my cheeks catch fire. Did he just- Until I bursted out laughing. I know he meant to call me a baby, like literally, but this was just too good.

“Ooh~ I never would’ve guessed you were one for pet-na-“

“SHUT IT BABYFACE* YOU KNOW WHAT I MEANT-“ his cheeks went red and all calmness vanished, but I could still see a smile dancing on his nervous lips.

“Awe~ Bak you’re such a romantic-“

“I JUST CALLED YOU AN ANNOYING PUNY HUMAN WHO SHITS A LOT DON’T TAKE IT AS A COMPLIMENT!” My laughing only intensified and Izuku slapped a hand over his mouth, I was gonna start crying. Izuku moved his hand to his forehead and chuckled catching a glare from our driver.

We just drove with no place in mind, cracking jokes and poking fun at a flustered and impaired driver Bakugou. I smiled and looked at the both of them arguing. For the first time in a while, I finally felt like I knew what it was like to have friends again.

..:::::..

______

Another part done! Hope you enjoyed and remember to give me some feedback! Thanks for reading! PS sorry if this is a little rushed, I’ll try to spend more time on the next part!!

NEXT

[revengeworld]

Let the Past die. III

CHAPTER 3

Zombie Apocolypse AU

Kylo x Reader (+ Solo siblings)

Words: +1.700

Warnings: Mentionings of Blood and well ... Zombies :D

AN: Sorry if this chapter is a little bit all over the placeand short, but it was one hell of a stressful week. I hope you enjoy this Chapter none the less though. Here is a little bit of Angst and Fluff before next weeks chapter hits :>

MY MASTERLIST

REQUESTS

Previous Chapter - Starry Night

Chapter 3 - Static

“Matt, how are you doing over there?” Kylo was carrying two canisters of destiled water in each hand and placed them outside the gas station next to their filled backpacks.

“It´s almost full, just a few more minutes.” his older brother explained while pushing his glasses up again.

“Well then I get some more food and tell the kids that we´re back soon.” munching on a chocolate bar, Kylo made another round through the empty shop and put everything they could use into one of the shopping bags from the counter.

Throwing in travel toothbrushes, toothpaste, maps, small bottles of juice for Ben and Y/N and basically everything he could basically find.

Even a bottle of alcohol went into the bag, since he knew they didn´t have much disinfection spray.

He stopped in front of a shelf, looking at a cheap Polaroid camera and threw it in as well as some films for it before returning outside.

“You shouldn´t take so much, other people could need it as well.“ Matt suddenly mumbled and Kylo only cocked a brow.

“Do you really think somebody else would care about the well being of others in this kind of situation? Everyone fends for themselves, the world has always been like this. Now they just don´t have to act the nice part anymore.”

Sometimes Kylo couldn´t believe how naive his older brother could be, maybe that was why he turned out to be so sceptical.

“Y/N, we are almost done here. How are things on your End?” when he loosened the grip on the walkie talkie the only thing he could hear was the static crackling threw the speaker.

“You hear me?” another moment with no answer and his head snapped to Matt who looked back at him while the canister in his hand got dangerously full.

“You don´t think something happened?” Matt quickly shut the Gas of and screwed the lid shut, while Kylo threw the backpack over to him, quickly pulling his own over his shoulders and grabbing the big cans of water.

While they were stumbling through the field, Kylo tried to reach out to her via the Walkie Talkie until he suddenly heard Bens quiet voice.

“Please come quick...” the small boy whispered before the static rung in their ears again.

Immediately starting to run, both of them couldn´t stop to think of the worst case scenario.

When the truck came in sight both of them slowed down to catch their breaths, Kylo letting out a relieved sighed.

Y/N was sitting on the cargo bed, staring into the other direction while Ben was looking out the window from the drivers cabin.

Continuing their walk Matt and Kylo arrived with heavy breaths and let the heavy loot fall onto the ground.

“What the hell happened?” leaning against the truck he followed her gaze and grabbed his knife.

“I´m sorry, I didn´t have time to respond and ...” shaking her head for a moment she looked at the bloody knife in her hand.

“They were attracted by the sound of that plastic bag when we stumbled over it. I tied it to the bush but one of them seemed to noticed us while we sneaked away.”

Kylo saw a body a few feet away and just nodded. “Thank you, for keeping Ben safe. I take care of them.”

Quickly grabbing Kylos shoulder, Y/N tried to hold him back.

“They are distracted, just let them be. We will be gone before they even notice.” she plead, not wanting him or anyone else in danger if it could be avoided.

Loosening her grip gently he turned back around to Y/N. “Would you forgive yourself if they would cross somebody elses path who isn´t as prepaired as we are?”

Looking into his brown eyes, she felt herself suddenly nodding and let go of his jacket.

“I´ll … I´ll help you.” surprised Kylo stopped in his tracks but helped her down from the trunk.

“You don´t need to do this.” he reminded her, but she had a stern look in her eyes.

“Nobody should be left in this kind of state. Who knows if they realise what their doing but just can´t control their bodys anymore…. And need to watch everything but can´t stop themselves. I wouldn´t want to stay like that.” clenching her hand around the handle of the knife, her knuckles slowly turned white.

“Alright…” he nodded, leading the way.

After filling the tank to the brim, Kylo went a second time to get more Gas and they adjusted all their belongings on the cargo bed so the middle was accessible for at least a sleeping bag or two.

It was tight but it would be good enough for the rest of the night and a good rest.

“I´ll take the first watch.” Kylo offered his brother, while looking over to Y/N and Ben who filled the driver cabin with a few blankets.

“No it´s alright I´ll do it. Just because Dad and Uncle Luke tried to make you into a fighter, doesn´t mean you always have to be one, you know?” the Blonde sighed, his voice filled with guilt.

Just because he was such a failure, his younger brother had to take this burden instead. Sitting down next to Matt, Kylo only gave him a light hit against the back of his head. Matt quickly grabbed his glasses so they wouldn´t fall off.

“Don´t worry about that. It comes in handy now doesn´t it.” with an encouraging smirk he laid an arm around Matts shoulders and pushed their heads together.

“You are my brother. No matter what happens and you always will be.”

“Maybe I would have been better as a little brother huh?” Matt laughed before they got distracted by footsteps.

“Sorry I didn´t mean to interrupt.” Y/N clutched onto the sweatjacket around her shoulder while circling to the end of the truck.

Both of the boys stretched a hand out to her, so she could join them on the trunk.

“Can´t sleep?” Kylo asked and Matt saw how his younger brother was looking at the girl. Shoving his glasses back onto his nose Matt could only smirk and hopped from the truck. “I´ll look after Ben.”

Y/N and Kylo looked after the blonde man, then at eachother and Kylo only shrugged with his shoulders. Seeing that she quickly pulled the Hood of her jacket over her head and pulling her legs close to her chest, he tried to reach for a blanket.

“No it´s fine.” Y/N tried to argue, but Kylo could see her shiver.

“You should at least get in one of the sleeping bags.” he countered sternly and the only thing she could do was to give in.

Crawling to the other end of the truck, she cuddled into the sleepingbag and leaned her back against the drivers cabin, before Kylo sat down next to her.

Squished against his wide shoulders and their bags, she suddenly started to giggle. “Well know i´m sure i´m not getting cold anymore.” she joked and a rare smile appeared on Kylos lips.

“I still can´t wrap my head around what has happened. A few hours ago I was worrying about my chemistry test and now ….” shaking her head for a moment, she pulled her legs closer again to rest her head on her knees.

“It seems to be some kind of infection. Mom told us that there were incidents already, but the government choose to not tell it to the puplic. They didn´t expect it to run wild in just a few hours.”with every word his voice grew deeper with anger.

“How does the infection work?” it was just a mere whisper, but he knew that she porpably had it on her mind for a while.

“Was there really no cure at all?” she didn´t cry, no sobs either and her voice didn´t break, but it still made his stomach turn.

“Not… for everyone.”

“So you lied to me?!” Y/Ns head snapped immediately up to look him directly in his eyes.

Laying his big hand onto her head, he sighed.

“No. No, I didn´t. It was to late for them… If you get bit or even scratched, the infection will kill you and then it is like a restart. But Nothing is left of the former self.” he explained calmly.

“So only those who just got infected but didn´t die can be rescued?”

Slowly nodding his head, Kylo sighed again and lifted his hand from her head.

For a moment there was just a comfortable silence between them until Y/N spoke up again.

“Kylo? I´m… I´m sorry for calling you a monster.” he could hear in her voice that she felt uncomfortable to bring it up again.

“Don´t worry. It´s not the first time I hear that. Really it´s alright.”

She scoffed and looked up at him again. “Well that doesn´t sound alright to me. Who said that?”

“Does it matter?” Kylo returned the question with a grin. Shrugging with her shoulders Y/N only sighed.

Feeling his enormous hand on her head again, she tried to look up. “But I appreciate your apology.”

With a grown she laid her head on her knees again and he rased an eyebrow.

“Everything alright?”

“I feel a little naceous...” she mumbled and it felt like a lighting bulb went off over his head.

“Shoot, you didn´t have any food! I totally forgot to give you and Ben the stuff we took.” lightly tapping onto the window from the drivers cabin, Kylo waited until Ben sticked his head up. “You hungry, buddy?”

“Starving!” his younger brother nodded and opened the window to take the plastic bag with snacks for him.

Handing Y/N the other bag, her Eyes widened at her favourite pie on top.

“I can´t believe you really got some!” she grinned and immediately bite into the sweet tart.

“Slow down, otherwise you´re gonna choke.” while laughing, Kylo offered her a small bottle of water.

While to other two were filling their tummys and Matt made another round, Kylo studied the maps again, before he noticed something heavy against his arm.

Looking down at it, he saw Y/N had fallen asleep and slowly sunk down against him.

Only a few more hours and their all would be in Washington and reunited with their Parents. At least that it was Kylo thought, not knowing how wrong he was.

NEXT CHAPTER - Nothing left

Tags: @karma-jolie - @hungrymango

[chimerabal]

Session.... what are we at four?

I lost track. Oops. Thankfully tumblr is in reverse chronological order so it’s not actually an issue.

I WAS WRONG THIS IS SESSION NUMBER FIVE.

I am So Pumped for flavoring out my new spells that I almost forgot I needed to type this play by play--- which is super important because this week was full of dark humor and stupidity.

We started the session with all the players plus a giest and Ugly, our ~8ft by ~4ft scaab, having barged into a kindly (yet grumpy) man’s house and locking ourselves in for temporary shelter from an approaching cult. We were all pretty beat; with our cleric and necro-alchemist having just kicked the shit out of each other, and a ghost having kicked the shit out of my character. No one even thought to ask this dude’s name before our dumb asses started in on our bullshit. War cleric Mikela immediately found a crack in the boarded up windows to watch the cultists pass by. Sibyl, necro-alchemist, put herself in a cozy corner to sit out the rest of her post-brawl-trauma. After sitting Ugly in front of the door as a barricade, and offering a hollow and uninterested ‘sorry’ to the guy who’s door we just damn near broke down, my scaberen Uriel got hit with a wave of paranoia and started rifling through all the guy’s stuff looking for traps to disarm or Something. Before the man got too angry Mikela came around and spoke to him some and Uriel sat their dumb ass down next to Sibyl in the quiet corner to also chill the fuck out.

Mikela asked the man some questions about the town, and the cult, and all the happenings; then hit the helpful giest with some as well. We learned that before the cult started showing up two orphans appeared in town, a young man and his even younger brother. They were from a neighboring town, and were recently orphaned by something bloody and unpleasant. Unsatisfied with these answers, Mikela did some scouting from the upstairs window, got a second wind or Something, and decided that we should immediately leave the shelter we just worked so hard to Get Into and chase these cultist jerks down. Right Now. After all, the cult was recruiting--- or something loud--- just a few streets over, and we might not get this chance again before they kill more innocents. Uriel argued against this for a bit, since shes a coward they got indoors to Rest and that it would be stupid to throw ourselves back into battle unprepared and we should Really just take advantage of Finally being under a roof for a while. Sibyl agreed, more or less, that it was probably dangerous and stupid to back out without healing. This went back and forth for a bit, as it does. I manage to get a Super Abridged version of the script I had written out for learning All Of Sibyl’s Mysterious Secrets... got basically nothing outta her :P Scripts don’t work in RP settings, I get that now. Mikela did a healing spell that brought everyone back up to full health and the party agreed to head out.

We decide to leave Ugly with the man in his home, but the guy takes a little bit of prodding to agree to that. Uriel--- not totally over the paranoia from earlier--- is a huge asshole to him and he gives the party a time limit of three hours to get the hell back and take their awful zombie abomination. She almost commands Ugly to destroy the fucking house if they’re not back in time but Ugly is a good boy and wouldn’t have done that anyways ;w;b. The party stealths on over to where the Loud Cult Noises are coming from. There’s this... ascension? of very colorful giests centered around where we are headed. Sibyl is the only one who notices this and calmly instructs Mikela and Uriel to keep cool, and for Uriel specifically Not To Look Up. Uriel apparently really trusts Sibyl because she listened... until Mikela failed her perception and fucking started screaming. That many giests simply isn’t normal so... we were all pretty shook okay? 

Mikela’s scream alerted some of the cultists and we scrambled to hide. Uriel and Sibyl hid fabulously in the alleys... the exact same alley... in the same spot... against what our plans were. Mikela went upwards and scaled a building which.... wasn’t very stealthy but the cultists never bothered to look up, so ultimately the best hiding spot. Uriel tried distracting the cultists by throwing a gold coin into their area--- hoping it would distract them and they’d fight over it. It failed, they ignored it. Sibyl tried to divert their attentions to a near by area by firing a flame spell into said area.... which also failed and blew our cover. 

The cultists were unable to hit either Sibyl or Uriel with attacks normally, BUT THEN one of Sibyl’s ghost-spells backfired a bit and she started glowing Very Brightly, blinding the enemies and also Uriel. Uriel was able to land a devastating hit on one of the cultists even when blind before backing the hell up and regaining her eyesight. Mikela got the jump (ha) on the enemies by launching herself off the building and into the fray, doing a lot of damage. Sibyl- still super glowy- electrocuted one of the cultists with a VERY COOL TASER GAUNTLET. Uriel ended the battle by strangling the remaining cultist into unconsciousness. Mikela looted the body and shouldered the unconscious dude and Uriel tried to carry the dead guy--- saying it would be disrespectful or something to just Leave It There Like That. Definitely not weird scaberen motivations no sir. We ended up giving the dead guy to Katya (who is here in spirit for this game- and here for when we can’t do things with our own bad strength stats) to carry.

The group hears the loud cultists from a neighboring road fussing over ‘that strange glow over there’ (Sibyl) and heading our way. The party runs through the town in weird ways to throw the group off our tail until Sibyl stops glowing, and then runs even more after that; we weren't able to shake them. The dead guy was leaking and leaving a blood trail. The group deliberates for a bit and decides to tourniquet the bleeding leg just above the offending wound, then cut the rest of it off and make a fake blood trail away from where we were going. The amputation is done with Great Somberness (because its so morbid on the party’s part, and because it’s ruining an other wise Lovey Corpse on Uriel’s). Uriel is then given the leg to make the fake trail with, which they do gladly.... probably having a bit too much fun splattering blood everywhere in the process.

The group returns to the grumpy man’s house with a body and a hostage and don’t immediately see the grumpy man. We find him barricaded on the top floor of his house with a spear poking out his only sight hole, ranting about how he KNEW that beastly thing was going to come after him, and trying to stab poor Sibyl who and just wanted to let him know we came back. Both Sibyl and Mikela try to talk the guy down, while Uriel is losing their god damn mind laughing at the situation. The hostage begins to awaken (Sibyl punches him), catching the guy’s attention. He disarms and sees Uriel and Katya holding a limp form, and Mikela shouldering a gagged and bound man. Pretty sure Uriel blew whatever positive progress we made on the grumpy dudes mental state with all the laughter and smirking... especially after asking What The Fuck she was holding. The group leave him alone to work with the hostage downstairs.

Mikela and Sibyl work a bit on getting the hostage to stop Screaming--- half because he’ll attract unwanted attention and half because, you just can’t interrogate like that. Uriel steps in and tells the guy that if he doesn’t shut up they’ll feed him to Ugly (who is still sitting in front of the door being a Good Boy). He stops screaming and pisses himself, which is gross on its own, yeah, but Mikela still had him on her shoulder. Uriel falls back into hysteric laughter as Mikela doffs her armor as quickly as fuckin’ possible. She then hurls all the piss covered armor at Uriel, who effortlessly dodges it. The armor hits Ugly--- making Uriel laugh even Harder--- then it tries putting ON the pissy armor--- and at this point Uriel is basically crying. Mikela is busy cleaning herself off, and Uriel is trying to regain composure, so Sibyl starts the interrogation on our prisoner. 

The interrogation is pretty long, Sibyl asks a few questions before Mikela takes over, and eventually Uriel joins the group mostly to observe. We learn that this guy had Literally Just Joined the cult today. He joined because the church’s  protections aren’t doing Shit in this crappy fucked up little town and almost everyone here is totally disillusioned. The dude Sibyl killed was the only person he actually Knew in the whole cult and he really couldn’t offer us much info on members... or really much of anything. He didn’t know the name of the demon they follow--- only that it’s name began with an N and that it was calling itself ‘the whispered one’ and ‘the heir to Griselbrand’ (which Uriel pointed out, is kinda stupid, why follow some lesser demon when Griselbrand is still in power?). Around here is when Sibyl checked out to work on her Mystery Notes... and Uriel got bored almost immediately after when the leader was described. The cult is run by a young twiggy male with long blond hair, and he often has a child with him (not even a partial demon or something cool and grotesque--- why even bother). Mikela asked some more questions and eventually came to the conclusion that it was the weird orphans from earlier who are now running the cult. I hope I got all the deets from that- this was Late Game and I’m not the best note taker lmao.

When Uriel got bored with the interrogation she noticed that Sibyl had left the room and, quietly, went to go find her. Sibyl had taken out the same note-filled bible from the other night and was flipping through it. Uriel got close enough to see the pages that Sibyl was focused on were written in code--- code that Sibyl obviously didn’t know. She startled Sibyl by asking what was up and took 3 points of head-to-jaw damage when Sibyl jumped up and bolted. Nosy persistence didn’t really pay off much for Uriel; Sibyl claimed to not know what the book was about, or if it was related to the cult-shit, and just gave some really vague and suspect answers that Uriel took at face value. And, although Sibyl is the most interesting character overall, Mikela barged into the room with her “ITS THE ORPHANS” revelation and won Sibyl some reprieve from my nosy character.

Uriel and Mikela discuss the orphans a bit, the ghost tells us that the town they are from is still there- but gives us Cryptic Horse Shit about how far away the town is from where we are. While we’re all distracted our hostage slips out of his restraints and flees the house, and we Only notice because the door is squeaky. As he leaves he says “I’m not the only one who’s heard the call” and we see a bunch more people walking towards where the cultists Probably are. Spooky.

The campaign ends here, and I shortly after realize I forgot entirely about the body I should have been working with... OOPS. I’m honestly only even mentioning that here because I don’t want to forget about it AGAIN come next week I need that for spells.

And per usual, not proof reading or anything, and I don’t trust that I didn’t miss details- I kinda check out sometimes on other peoples turns... Its the curse of an ADHD attention span without visual input  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I try.

[waveridden]

FIC: Crash Bang Boom

“I just realized there’s a zombie apocalypse going on,” Steve says, muffled by his hands. “Like, a zombie walked into Parker’s living room, the world’s falling apart, and now we’re in a kitchen supply store fighting about butter knives. Because that’s the best thing we could be doing with our time right now.”

A SP7 zombie AU. 26k. Cib/Parker, Autumn/Sami Jo. CW for death, guns, alcohol use, and one scene of graphic violence. You can find more detailed content warnings here.

Read on Ao3

#

“Dude,” James says, “we need to get butter knives. For melee combat.”

“Okay, for one-” Cib lifts a finger. “If you’re meleeing a zombie, it’s gonna eat your fucking face, game over. And for B-” a second finger- “if you’re gonna stab someone, why wouldn’t you want it to be a sharp knife? Really dig in there.”

“Sharp knives can carve their eyes out,” Steve says, so blandly that Parker can’t tell if he’s joking.

Cib snaps his fingers and points at Steven. “Carve their eyes out! They don’t need ‘em, you might as well take ‘em.”

Parker, against his better judgment, asks, “What do you need zombie eyes for?”

Cib snorts and shakes his head. “If I have to tell you, you already don’t know, dude.” Which isn’t helpful at all, but it’s technically right, so Parker doesn’t say anything.

“You can stab an eye with a butter knife,” James says insistently, drawing everyone’s attention back over to him. He’s holding a box of butter knives - or actually what looks like a box of normal dinner cutlery, which is maybe even less useful. “And it’ll hurt more.”

“Stabbing isn’t the same as carving out,” Cib argues.

James sighs in pure exasperation, shaking his cutlery box. “You can’t eat zombie eyes.”

“That’s not what I wanted them for!”

“You can’t fuck them either, Cib, they’re eyes. ”

“Well, clearly you’re not using your imagination!”

“I don’t wanna imagine that,” Steve mumbles.

“And I’m not gonna fuck them!” Cib crosses his arms. “You can plant them and use them to grow zombies!”

“Oh my god,” James says, horrified. “No, okay, listen, glisten, you can’t do that, because it doesn’t work with humans. And anyways, the stabbing will hurt more with the butter knife. Or a fork. We gotta get them.”

“Why does a butter knife hurt more?” Steve asks. He sounds very, very tired.

“So take a steak knife, right? Sharp knife.” James opens the cutlery box and rips out a knife. “Imagine this butter knife is sharp, right?”

“Sharp knife,” Cib repeats.

“You wanna cut someone open, no problem, you can just-” James mimes slashing with the knife. “It doesn’t take, like, effort. But if you wanna cut someone with a butter knife-” he mimes stabbing, so emphatically that Parker nearly takes a step away. “You gotta put some muscle into it.”

“I thought that was a sharp knife,” Cib says.

“Nope, it’s a butter knife now.”

“Well, you didn’t say you were changing the knife!”

“James, you have to say if you’re changing the knife,” Steven sighs. “You’re gonna confuse Cib.”

“Fine! I changed the fucking knife, Cib, it’s a butter knife again.”

Cib nods. Parker thinks, in passing, that they’re all going to die.

“So you have to stab someone with a butter knife-” James stabs at the air again. “If you wanna break skin, you gotta really go for it, right? Gotta have force behind it. So by the time you break the skin, you’ve got that follow-through going, and it’ll fuck someone up. And slashing - Cib, the knife’s sharp again - it’s all surface-level, it’s not the same.”

“Okay,” Cib says. “But I still want sharp knives. Real ones.”

“We can get sharp knives! We can have both, I’m just saying, we should get both.”

Steve groans loudly and puts his head into his hands. Cib glances over. “Steve, you decent?”

“I just realized there’s a zombie apocalypse going on,” Steve says, muffled by his hands. “Like, a zombie walked into Parker’s living room, the world’s falling apart, and now we’re in a kitchen supply store fighting about butter knives. Because that’s the best thing we could be doing with our time right now.”

“There’s not a gun store in the strip mall,” Parker points out. “And there’s food in here.”

Steve waves him off. “We get it, Parker, you had a good idea, but it’s still the end of the fucking world.”

“Gun stores are probably empty by now,” James adds. “It’s been, what, three days? I’m amazed there are still butter knives here.”

“I’m amazed there’s any food left in here.” Cib looks around, presumably at all the jars of salsa and other weird cooking shit. “We should finish looting this kitchen store and get home, right?”

“Uh,” Parker says.

So mostly, Parker’s down for whatever. This is just as true in the zombie apocalypse as it was beforehand. He doesn’t know a lot about zombies, scary movies have never been his thing, but he knows that his best shot is sticking with the group. Lone wolves don’t do well at the end of the world, and he likes the boys. Even if they give him shit, he’s pretty sure they actually have his back, and so he’s going to roll with what they think is a good idea. But also, their home base is his house, and there’s been a zombie rotting in it for the past three days. And he’s not interested in staying there if they don’t have to.

“No,” Steve says suddenly. “No, we should stay here.”

“We should absolutely not stay here,” James argues. “This is too public! Parker’s house is out of the way, nobody’s going to come busting through our front door there.”

“Except the first zombie,” Parker says.

James glares at him. “Outlier.”

“Pretty important outlier.”

“Parker’s right.” Steve grimaces, because of course he does, but he continues. “Listen, this place is easier to fortify, we have more weapons on hand, it’s a more central location for supplies, and we’re in a better place to barter with people.”

James frowns and folds his arms, butter knife dangling from his hand. “Are we already on a barter economy?”

“I think that the economic structure of the civilized world is the least of our problems, dude,” says Cib. “You know, if we’re arguing about whether or not you can fuck zombie eyes, is the economy really important anymore? Was it ever really important?”

“Fucking eyeballs is not an argument,” Steve says. “It’s really, really not an argument, and I will kill you myself if you keep trying to arguing it.”

Cib nods. “Point taken. No arguing, just doing.”

“No, no, n-” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. “Oh my god, just mercy kill me right now.”

“If I kill you, am I in charge?” James asks.

“No, nope.” Steven practically leaps backwards until he’s standing behind Parker. “No, you can be in charge if you kill Parker.”

“Done,” Cib says.

“Hey,” Parker says mildly, trying to hide the sudden, deep panic that bubbles up inside him. He’s pretty sure it doesn’t work, given that James and Cib exchange their patented “ugh, fucking Parker” look, but it’s the thought that counts. Maybe. “Enough people are trying to kill me, I don’t need my zombie apocalypse crew to do it too.”

“Who the fuck is trying to kill you?” Steve demands.

“Zombies. Lots of them.” He pauses, considering. “Maybe Jeremy? I haven’t seen him in a few days, but he talks about it sometimes.”

“Jeremy doesn’t get to kill you,” Cib says indignantly. “I called dibs.”

“You absolutely can not call murder dibs,” Steve sighs.

James lifts a hand. The hand with the knife. “Can I call murder dibs?”

“No! Parker, oh my god, make yourself useful, help stop this.”

“If we stay here, I’ll be in charge of our inventory,” Parker offers. “There’s probably a stockroom and stuff in the back, and I’m good at keeping track of things.”

James lowers the knife. “That’s actually a pretty good plan.”

“Fucking-” Steve throws his hands up in the air and steps out from behind Parker. “Why is it a good idea when he agrees? It was my idea!”

“But we were in my house,” Parker points out feebly. “So, you know, maybe it makes sense that I get a say in if we-”

“All in favor of Parker not getting a say in anything?” James says, and everyone’s hands go up. Parker sighs.

“All in favor of Parker never saying anything?” Cib continues. All three hands stay up.

“The kitchen store was my idea,” Parker mutters.

Cib claps a hand down on Parker’s shoulder, hard. “We would’ve had that idea without you.”

“We need to figure out if we can get sleeping bags in here,” Steve says musingly, and just like that, they live in an abandoned kitchen supply store.

  #

  It takes time to get settled in. They have to move all the shelves, and all the supplies, and they also sort all the supplies. And that really means Parker sorts the supplies, because that’s his job as keeper of the inventory.

Which, okay, side note: that could’ve been either the worst or best idea he’s ever had. He likes that he has something to do, especially when nobody else has consistent things to work on, but he also has most of a partially-looted kitchen store to keep track of. So they have a lot of blenders, but no reliable electricity, so really they have a lot of loose blades and breakable glass. And not just from the blenders.

In retrospect, given the way that they are, or mostly the way that Cib is, a kitchen store may have been the most dangerous possible home base.

But anyways, Parker keeps track the inventory. The rest of the boys try to help, out of what they say is boredom and not legitimate compassion, but he thinks they might feel bad for how much he has to sort through. He doesn’t mind, mostly. He can stay in the kitchen store, with a pistol that James will not explain where he got, and everyone else can go out looting for more supplies and make Parker’s job harder.

“I want to be in charge of ammo,” James says, on their fifth day in the kitchen store. “Like, just ammo.”

“Not guns?”

“Can you not keep track of the guns?”

“Yeah, and I can keep track of the ammo.”

��What if I want to?”

“Find your own job, James,” Parker says, because he’s an asshole and this is the only thing he has to himself in the end of the world.

“Damn,” James says. He sounds either impressed, constipated, or like he’s trying not to laugh. Parker’s just gonna… let that one remain a mystery. “What if I want yours?”

“Didn’t we agree that you’d have to kill me to take my job?”

“No, we were gonna kill Steve.”

“No,” Steven calls from the opposite corner of the store, where he and Cib are doing something complicated with barbed wire.

Parker frowns. “Do we have barbed wire now?”

James rolls his eyes. “Use your fucking eyes, Parker, we obviously have barbed wire.”

“When did we get that?”

“A couple days ago. Same time we picked up all the guns.”

“I would’ve thought guns are a hot commodity at the end of the world,” Parker muses. “Or that it would’ve taken some effort to get them.”

“Oh, it did.” James flashes him a grin, disconcertingly genuine. “I was right about the butter knives.”

“You’re fucking with me,” Parker says automatically. He would’ve noticed if James came back one day with bloody butter knives. At least, he thinks so. Inventory takes a lot of attention. It might’ve passed him by.

“That’s for me to know and you to think about till the zombies eat you.”

“Are you planning on letting them eat me?”

“It’s cute that you think we wouldn’t.”

“Good luck sorting all the shit I leave behind,” Parker says, and goes back to sorting kitchen towels.

James pauses. “Oh, you bitch, you actually made yourself useful, didn’t you?”

“I might’ve.”

“You’re a crafty one.”

“I’ve always been crafty.”

“Our favorite craft boy.” James reaches down and ruffles Parker’s hair. It’s uncomfortably aggressive. “You’re like an edgy knitter. Making us a safe home.”

“It’s- I’m not that kind of crafty-”

“Parker really is kind of crappy,” Cib yells, and lifts a hand. Steve, without looking, high-fives him.

“Ouch,” Parker says, more to be polite than because he actually cares.

“Hey!” James points at Cib. “No verbally wounding him before one of us knows how to do his job.”

“I’ll learn to do it!” Cib jumps to his feet. “Parker, teach me how to be you.”

“No,” Steve says immediately. “One Parker is enough.”

Cib nods sagely. “You’re right. I’ll teach him how to be me.”

“ No, ” Steve and James say together.

Cib makes eye contact with Parker and mouths something completely unreadable. If Parker had to guess, it’s probably crude and insulting.

“Besides,” Parker says, “you guys are busy getting more supplies. I can’t teach you how to do inventory when I haven’t even inventoried everything here yet.”

James crouches down next to him. “You’re not done?”

“I’m probably more than half done, but no, I’m not.”

“Have you done the ammo yet?”

Parker sighs. “Yes, I’ve done the ammo.”

“Fuck!”

“Get another job, James, quit trying to steal mine.”

“Jobs? In this economy?” Cib demands. “Zombie economy? Ezonomy? What do you guys think the job market like in the ezonomy? Is it gonna be really specialized, or-”

“Jesus Christ, stop talking about zombie economics,” Steve grumbles. “Why is this so interesting to you?”

“Marxism,” Cib says, which might be an answer, might just be the one word he knows related to economic theory. It’s a toss-up.

“Oooookay,” Steve says. “Get back down here, I don’t wanna cut my fucking hands on this wire myself.”

Cib obediently kneels back down. Parker looks at James. “Go help them.”

“You sure?” James says, and for a second, Parker feels bad. They’re all scared, they all need things to do, and maybe it’s selfish of him to keep such an essential job to himself. Maybe he should teach James his system, or at least outline it for him.

“Yeah,” Parker says, because he actually is sure. This is his, goddammit. It’s the end of the world, and he’s holding on to what he can.

  #

  The problem with being in charge of inventory is:

Jeremy shows up. Like, literally materializes out of thin air, as far as Parker can tell. Like, everything’s fine and then Steven yells “Jesus fucking Christ” and Jeremy is outside one of the kitchen store windows. Holding an axe.

Parker has definitely, definitely had nightmares about this before.

“You should really board up those windows,” Jeremy says as Steve opens the door. “Could be dangerous. Hey, Parker.”

“Hey, Jeremy,” Parker says, trying incredibly hard not to let his voice shake.

“How did you find us?” Steve demands. “Is this just a freaky coincidence?”

“Yeah, I came here to loot, and then I saw you in the window.” Jeremy shrugs, adjusting his grip on the axe. His very, very tight grip on the axe. “How long have you guys been here?”

“Three weeks?” Steve glances at Parker. “Three?”

“Too long,” Parker says.

Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, because there’s an appropriate length of time for the zombie apocalypse.”

Parker personally thinks that it got really old after the second week. Around the time Cib and James started teaching him and Steve tricks for shooting moving targets, the situation lost any of the weird Hollywood horror charm that it had left.

“Yeah, about three weeks,” Parker concedes, because he’s not going to tell fucking Jeremy about how scared he is about the end of the world. The guy is his friend, but he’s also kind of ruthless.

“Good call,” Jeremy says. Parker hates that he actually feels complimented by it.

“Anyways.” Steve folds his arms. “You just visiting, or are you here for a reason?”

Jeremy’s eyes flick around the room, from Parker to the makeshift sleeping corner set up for the four of them (shit) to the open stockroom door ( shit ) and landing back on Steven. “You interested in bartering, Steve?”

“Depends,” Steve says warily. “What are we bartering?”

“I’ll give you the axe if you give me Parker.”

Parker’s entire body flash-freezes. He knows that they all joke about how badly they want him gone, but he’s really not in the mood to find out if they mean it. “Steve-”

Steve rolls his eyes. “God, Parker, I’m not gonna sell you for an axe without talking to James and Cib first.”

“Am I really only worth an axe?”

“It’s a pretty good axe,” Jeremy says. “What else can you give me? Other than telling me that James and Cib are staying with you, of course.”

“Don’t be stupid, I know you already figured that out,” Steve says, blase enough that Parker is almost convinced. “What else do you want?”

“Food.”

“Parker, can we do that?”

“We can give you two cases of MREs,” Parker says. Cib had found a shitton of full cases in an apartment complex lobby a while ago. Said it looked like an abandoned camp. Parker doesn’t want to think about what went so bad that they abandoned all that food. “It’ll last you at least a week.”

“I need enough for two people,” Jeremy says.

“So that’d be you and Andrew,” Steve says neutrally.

Jeremy doesn’t even blink. “A week’s worth for two people. Four cases.”

“Not a chance. Two cases.”

“Three cases.”

“Two.”

“Two, and I come back if that doesn’t last the full week.”

Steve nods. “Fine. Parker.”

“Yeah,” Parker says, and it’s not until he’s in the stockroom and looking at the rations that he remembers the other, bigger problem with being in charge of inventory.

Look, it’s not like they’re going to run out of food anytime soon, if they keep going at the pace they’re going. All the boys go out most days for supplies, which range from food to weapons to clothes to batteries. And that means two things. First, it means they’re doing fine on supplies, so they can give Jeremy a couple dozen MREs, no problem. And second, it means Parker spends a lot of time alone. Just him keeping track of the things they collect.

Just him and, every now and again, famous actor James Allen McCune.

He just showed up a week or so ago outside the store and Parker felt bad, okay? The dude clearly didn’t have a zombie crew, or at least not a good one, so Parker gave him a butcher’s knife (not high-end, but sharp enough that he could defend himself) and a couple MREs and sent him on his way. And he didn’t tell the boys because it wasn’t like it was going to make a big deal. Besides, it wasn’t like they’d notice. Parker’s in charge of inventory.

And then James had shown up again, and Parker had given him a couple more MREs, and it’s really not like they’re running out. It’s just that giving Jeremy two cases feels like a lot.

Maybe it’s not a problem, he decides, as he picks up two cases of MREs. If it’s a problem then he’ll tell Steve they’re running low on food, and if it’s not then nobody will ever know. This doesn’t have to be a problem.

When he comes out with the cases in his arms, Steve is holding the axe. Jeremy is still hovering by the door. “That’s two full cases?”

“Two full cases.” Parker sets them on the floor in front of Jeremy’s feet. “They should last you the full week if you’re careful.”

Jeremy - well, he doesn’t quite smile as much as bare his teeth. “Yeah, because everyone’s careful at the end of the world.”

“Jeremy, come on,” Steve sighs. “Parker’s handling this as well as his child brain allows him to.”

“Hey,” Parker says without heat. “I’m in charge of inventory.”

“We know.” Steve pats Parker’s shoulder. “We’re all very proud of you. Now, let me ask you this: do you know how to sharpen an axe?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“A directly relevant one.”

“I know. And I can tell you.” Jeremy leans down and drums his fingers on the cases. “If you gimme another case.”

“Yeah,” Steve says flatly, “because we definitely can’t figure that one out on our own.”

“Google’s not working these days, Steve.”

“If you think Cib can’t figure out how to make something more dangerous, you haven’t been paying attention.”

Jeremy smiles, something reminiscent of an actual smile this time. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair. I’ll be seeing you guys.”

“Where are you and Andrew staying?” Parker blurts out. Maybe Jeremy is trying to kill him, but he wants to know that his friends are okay.

Jeremy lifts the cases. “Be seeing you,” He repeats, and then he’s gone just about as fast as he showed up.

Steve glances down at the axe. “I don’t know why we need this.”

“Firewood?”

“Oh, fuck, are we going to need firewood in the winter?”

“I mean, probably.”

Steve makes a face. “Can we make a suicide pact? I’ll chop your head off if you stab me.”

“I don’t think that’s how suicide pacts work,” Parker points out.

“This apocalypse has ruined everything,” Steve says. “I’m gonna go practice axing things, you wanna come with?”

“Absolutely,” Parker says, and Steve’s eyes crinkle up at the corners, and for a second everything feels… normal.

  #

  “Steve almost sold me to Jeremy for our new axe, you know,” Parker says.

Cib, who thankfully found another full case of MREs on his supply run, laughs. “Did he really?”

“Mmhm.” Parker leans over Cib’s shoulder and lets Cib push him away, like he always does. “Said the only reason he didn’t is he hadn’t talked to you and James about it.”

“I don’t know why you’re so worried about us selling you to Jeremy.”

“He tried to kill me before the world was ending, what do you think he’s going to do now?”

“Eat you.” Cib glances at him, nose wrinkled. “Duh.”

“Ugh, Cib, fucking gross.”

“What? I’d eat you.”

“I’d eat you .”

Cib, for some godforsaken reason, turns and winks at Parker. There’s tongue-wagging involved.

“Cib,” Parker says, “I’m going to axe you just so I never have to see that again.”

“Yeah, but if you did that, you wouldn’t have this.” Cib raps his knuckles against the computer monitor. It used to be part of the register system for the kitchen store, but Cib has claimed it as his own project. He’s also not explaining what he’s doing with it, or why it involves so many damn batteries, but Steve said it’s best just to indulge him on this.

Parker shakes his head. “I think we’d be lost without you, Cib.”

“Oh, dude, I’m the finder, remember?” Cib grins, and something catches in Parker’s chest because it looks… real. “If you guys lost me, I’d find you.”

“You think so?”

“I know so, bitch.” Cib goes back to the monitor. Parker leans in a little closer, and Cib barely nudges him back this time. “You can’t get rid of me that easy. You’d need four shotguns.”

“We have those.”

“Aw, well, then I’m fucked sideways on a futon.”

Parker laughs under his breath and decides, for now, to keep his mouth shut and watch Cib work. Whatever the hell he’s doing, he makes it fun to watch.

  #

  The zombie apocalypse tends to change your concept of a few things. How long you should go without a shower, for instance. How much sleep you need. How much food is enough for a day. Things like that.

Parker is having a bad day. And considering the world is literally ending, that’s saying something.

He managed to accidentally drop half of his first daily MRE on the floor, and considering how dirty everything is, he decided against eating it. He found out that his count for razors was off by a couple, and Cib also looked suspiciously cleaner than normal, but that wasn’t enough to accuse him of stealing. And on top of that Steve decided that Parker should go out on supply runs every now and again, so he and James got to bicycle down to a gas station.

(Steve is a good de facto apocalypse leader. This isn’t something Parker expected to learn about him, or about anyone, but he is. He has all these great ideas, like using bikes for transit and rotating who goes out. Parker’s proud of him, in a weird end-of-the-world way. Even if he hates going on supply runs.)

So he’s already not in a great mood, and on top of that he’s anxious as hell about splitting up with James, so he has one hand on the handle of his pistol as he goes through the aisles of the gas station. Just about everything is picked clean, and what isn’t is rotten, but he grabs things anyways. Some bottles of painkillers, a mostly-crushed bag of chips. He throws them all into an old backpack, sitting on the ground. Maybe one day they can trade luxury items for useful items. He’s got kind of a collection going in the stockroom.

And, because this is just how today is going, Parker leans down to pick up a bottle of ibuprofen, and when he stands up there’s a shotgun against the back of his head.

“Don’t move,” a voice says behind him, through gritted teeth. “Drop it.”

Parker drops the bottle. “Listen, I don’t want any tr-”

“Sami Jo!” the voice yells, and then prods Parker a little harder. “Stand up.”

Parker stands, turning around and lifting his hands as he does. There’s a woman in front of him, glaring forcefully up, shotgun pointed directly at Parker’s heart. “I swear to god, I thought this place was abandoned.”

“Are you gonna give us our things back?”

“I didn’t take any of the things in here,” Parker tries. It sounds like a lie, even to him.

“Yeah, whatever,” the woman says. “Sami Jo! Come on!”

“I’m a little held up right now, babe,” someone else yells back.

The woman jabs her shotgun at Parker. “Is it just you here?”

“Uhhhhhhh,” Parker says, trying to figure out what the odds are of James popping up out of nowhere. “Are you alone?”

Her eyes narrow. “You just heard me talking to someone else.”

“Was that you?” Parker forces himself to laugh. “Huh, here I thought I was going… zombie-crazy.”

“Zombie-crazy?” a new voice demands. When Parker turns, he almost sags in relief: there’s woman there, hands in the air, with James standing behind her, gun pointed at her head.

Parker’s shotgun girl narrows her eyes. “You could’ve just said you weren’t here alone.”

Parker laughs weakly. “Ha, well, you know.”

“Parker, you’re the only person I know who could get held at gunpoint in a gas station,” James complains. “This is ridiculous.”

The woman in front of James - Sami Jo, if Parker had to guess - clears her throat. “I’m also at gunpoint in a gas station.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know you.”

“Listen, I don’t know you either, but my girl has your boy-”

“Not mine,” James says. Parker glares at him. “I mean, sort of mine.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sami Jo says. “All I’m trying to say is we can put our guns down on the count of three. And everyone goes on their merry way.”

“And this one gives us back all our shit that he stole,” Parker’s shotgun girl adds, scowling at him.

“Aw, dude, you stole things?” James grins. “Nice. I changed my mind, I’m claiming you.”

“Guns down, then I empty my backpack,” Parker says.

Shotgun girl nods. “Count of three. One, two-” she lowers her gun, and James does the same. She points at Parker’s backpack, sitting abandoned on the ground. “Empty it.”

Parker bends down and upends the backpack. Ibuprofen might’ve been nice to have, but getting out of here alive is probably nicer.

“Dude, that’s a pretty sweet haul for being here all of five minutes,” James says, leaning over to look at it all. “Wait till we tell Cib, he’ll probably try and teach you about his Turkish method for picking pockets.”

“His Turkish what?”

“Cib?” one of the girls demands. When Parker looks over they’re standing together, arms tightly wound around each other’s waists. Sami Jo’s eyes are narrowed. “Did you say Cib? As in, Clayton James?”

Parker looks at James. James looks at Parker, and then back to Sami Jo. “Our answer to that is gonna depend on how you know this… Clayton fellow.”

“Like there’s gonna be more than one person we know named Cib?” Sami Jo snaps. “We were neighbors for a while, I fed his fish when he went on vacation to Florida. And got him a new one when I forgot to feed it and it died.”

“Cib did say that Turtle seemed different after Florida,” Parker murmurs.

James crosses his arms. “Okay. So you know Cib. What’s up?”

Sami Jo pauses. “Autumn and I need to talk for a minute. No looting while our backs are turned.”

“Sure thing,” James says. The minute they turn around, he reaches down and tucks a bottle of ibuprofen in the waistband of his pants.

“Dude,” Parker hisses.

James shrugs. “All’s fair in the end of days, baby. Tolstoy wrote that.”

“Who the fuck is Tolstoy?”

“I don’t know, but the man was a genius, haven’t you heard his operas?”

“James, I’m almost positive you’re making shit up.”

“Only almost?”

“Okay,” Sami Jo says loudly. When they look up, Sami Jo and Autumn look severely unimpressed. “First of all, I saw that, and you can keep your dick Advil to yourself.”

“Nice,” James whispers.

“And second, we want to cut a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“We want to join our crew with yours.”

Parker tries not to wince. The kitchen store isn’t small, but it’s also not a lot of space to share between the four of them, let alone six.

James must be thinking the same thing because he looks severely unimpressed. “And why should we say yes?”

“Because I’m a good shot,” Autumn says. “And because we have a lot of guns to share with you.”

James leans his head towards Parker and murmurs, out of the side of his mouth, “How’re we doing on guns?”

“Could always use more,” Parker admits. “And it wouldn’t be so bad to have more people as lookouts.”

“Neither of us are great lookouts,” Sami Jo says, surprisingly candid. Autumn frowns up at her, but she just shrugs. “Babe, you can barely hear.”

“I mean, no,” Autumn says. Parker blinks in surprise. Now that he looks a little closer, Autumn is definitely looking at Sami Jo’s lips as she speaks. He maybe would’ve written that off as a girlfriend thing, but it makes just as much sense for it to be lip-reading. “But I thought…” She jerks her head up at the ceiling significantly.

Sami Jo’s eyes widen. “You can’t be serious.”

“He’s a good lookout!”

“He didn’t even notice these two clownfucks walking in!”

“Clownfuck,” James repeats under his breath. “Gonna use that one.”

Autumn crosses her arms. “We can’t just leave him.”

“We-” Sami Jo sighs. “Okay. Maybe.”

“Maybe what?” James demands.

“We have another guy as our lookout.” Sami Jo grimaces. “He’s a little weird. Got scratched by a zomb, but he seems fine.”

“And anything that doesn’t seem fine, he was like that beforehand,” Autumn adds. Sami Jo nods next to her. “But anyways. The three of us, and all the supplies we got, and we join up with you guys. Deal?”

“We’re not in charge,” James says. “We’d have to talk to Steve.” But from the way he glances at Parker, he knows as well as Parker does that Steve is going to say yes. Even if he complains about it.

Sami Jo nods. “I want to meet him.”

“That could work, actually.” James glances at Parker. “You take her to Steven and Cib, I’ll stay here and help Autumn get everything ready to leave.”

“And Alfredo,” Autumn insists.

“And Alfredo,” James agrees. “Wherever he is.”

“The roof, probably,” Sami Jo mutters. She tosses her hair over her shoulder and turns to face Autumn, stroking a hand down the back of her head.. “Be careful while I’m gone.”

“You too.” Autumn leans up on her tiptoes, and Sami Jo smiles as she leans down to kiss her.

James glances at Parker. “Don’t get lost.”

“I’m not going to get lost, James, why would you-”

“And don’t get eaten,” James adds. “Steve’ll be pissed if one of us has to figure out that weird sorting system you’ve got going on.”

Parker is pretty sure that Cib has it at least half figured out by now, because it’s actually not that complicated, but he nods anyways. “See you soon.”

“See you soon, man.”

Sami Jo looks at Parker. “How’re we getting there?”

“We have bicycles.”

“Then let’s ride.” And she grins at him, and Parker feels himself grin back.

  #

  There is a specific, special way to open the kitchen store door that doesn’t result in a barbed wire trap maiming you. The day that Steve set it up, he showed everyone how to do it, and how to be careful about it. Parker has practiced opening the barbed wire trap dozens of times in the past month and a half.

“You’re bad at that,” Sami Jo says, after Parker narrowly avoids getting caught in the trap.

“It’s set up poorly, not my fault,” he mutters, even though Steve and Cib can probably hear him. He steps into the store. “Steve! We have a visitor.”

“A visitor?” Cib pops up from behind the counter with the computer monitor, and his jaw drops. “Aw, Sami Jo!”

“Cib!” She practically flies over to where he is, throwing her arms around his neck, and he manages to both catch her and pick her up. “Oh my god!”

“Did you trade James for her?” Steven asks, sliding over to Parker’s side. “I’m not judging if you did, because this could potentially be a step up, but we need to get walkie-talkies or something so we can discuss these things on the fly.”

“I didn’t trade James.”

“Yeah, James probably would’ve traded you first.”

Parker shakes his head. Steve looks at him sidelong. “No, I mean it, he would’ve.”

“I know you mean it,” Parker admits. “I just mean he didn’t. And we’re not trying to trade, they’re trying to join up.”

“Join up?” Cib repeats. He still has an arm around Sami Jo’s waist, but now she’s sitting on the counter next to him, one foot swinging against Cib’s thigh. “Donezo. Welcome aboard, you’re a real pirate now.”

“Hold on.” Steven looks at Sami Jo. “First of all, I’m Steven.”

She waves at him. “Sami Jo. Can my girlfriend and I move in?”

“Girlfriend? Aw!” Cib grins at her. “Steve, we gotta, she was my neighbor, we have a code of honor.”

“Cib, there’s not a neighborly code of honor.”

“You just don’t know about it because you weren’t inducted into the order.”

Steve frowns. “What order? Is there a secret neighbor order?”

Sami Jo nods. “Cib, remember that fourth rite of passage?”

Cib shakes his head. “It was brutal. My nutsack is still bruised, and it’s been years .”

“Okay,” Steve says loudly. “Putting aside the fact that my neighbors apparently hate me, why should we?”

“We’ve got a lot of guns.”

Steve glances at Parker. “Do we need more guns?”

“It’s never bad to have more guns,” Parker says.

“That’s a good point.” Steve looks back at Sami Jo. “You and your girlfriend?”

“She’s hard of hearing, but she’s a good shot.” She grimaces. “And I guess our lookout, but he would probably just nest on the roof.”

“Roof?” Steven repeats.

“ Nest? ” Parker repeats, because that part is new information.

“Steve,” Cib says. “Steve, Steve. We have to. We have to or I’ll leave. ”

“You’re not gonna leave.”

“I’d leave!” He tugs Sami Jo in closer towards him. “I know her!”

“You know us too!”

“What if I like her more?”

“What if you like her girlfriend less?”

“I already love her,” Cib says solemnly. “Also, they don’t have a Parker.”

“Okay, that’s a good reason,” Steve admits. Parker sighs. Sami Jo giggles, because apparently it’s easy to get on board with Parker being at the bottom of the totem pole. “Just you three?”

“Just us three. And Alfredo eats bugs and rotten food, so you wouldn’t have to worry about that.”

Steve wrinkles his nose. “And this is a human you’re inviting into our home?”

“We think so, yeah.”

“And you’d chip in, with supply runs and all that?”

“Of course, we’re not freeloaders.”

“Steve,” Cib says, eyes round. “Steve, say yes, please, please, I won’t ask you for anything ever again-”

“Don’t lie.”

“I won’t ask you for anything until tomorrow.”

“Cib.”

“I won’t ask you for anything for four hours.”

“That seems like a reasonable sacrifice,” Sami Jo says seriously. “I think you should give the man what he wants.”

Steve sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, fine, okay, let’s do it, why not?”

“Yes!” Cib holds up a hand, and Sami Jo high-fives him so hard that Parker winces. Cib doesn’t react. “I wanna meet your deaf girlfriend, I bet she’s great.”

“She’s the best!” Sami Jo beams and points at Parker. “She held up that one at gunpoint.”

“Parker!” Steve says, aghast. “You got held up? We’ve talked about this!”

Parker frowns. “No, we haven’t.”

“Well, we’re going to have to.”

“Well, James had Sami Jo at gunpoint!”

“ Dude ,” Cib says, and looks at Sami Jo. “I can fight him for your honor, if you want.”

“I can fight for my own honor, but thanks.” Sami Jo grins. “Can we go get my girlfriend now?”

“And James,” Parker mumbles.

“Girlfriend and James,” Steve repeats. “Alright, let’s shape up and ship out. And also find the weird lookout.”

  #

  Parker does not like Alfredo. The less said about that, the better.

  #

  “Hey.” Sami Jo pokes her head into the stockroom. “Is Cib in here?”

“I don’t think so.” Parker glances around and cups his hands around his mouth. “Cib, wake up!”

There’s no answer. Sami Jo frowns. “Nobody’s seen him in a few hours.”

“What? Why?”

“Dunno. That’s why I was hoping he was back here.”

“Well, he’s not.”

“Yeah, obviously.” Sami Jo shakes her head. “Just let one of us know if he turns up, okay?”

“I will,” Parker promises. As soon as she leaves, he grabs a flashlight and starts going through the aisles of shelves. There’s no telling with Cib, whether he could’ve left or fallen asleep under a shelf waiting to jump out and scare Parker, but it’s worth checking. And double-checking.

In fact, Parker is on his third pass scouring the shelves when he hears Steve demand, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Uh- I’m-” Parker swivels, flashlight in hand, and Steve shrinks back as the beam hits him in the face. Parker switches it off. “Sorry. Flashlight.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Steve shakes his head. “Have you seen Cib?”

“No,” Parker says, trying to ignore the sinking dread in his stomach. “Why, has he- isn’t he back?”

“No,” Steve says, clearly frustrated. “And nobody knows where he is.”

“Did he take one of the bikes?”

“James is in the toy store right now checking.”

Parker shudders involuntarily. “Why do we store our bikes in a toy store?”

“Because the zombies weren’t enough nightmare fuel, so we keep zombie bait in an abandoned toy store. And if you find Cib before we do, tell him to quit being such a cuck.”

“I- what?”

“And you can kick him. You have my permission.” He points at Parker. “One time only.”

“I’m not gonna cuck him- kick him, fuck- ”

“Whatever.” Steve turns and leaves, and Parker takes a deep, rattling breath.

Okay. They can’t find Cib. This is fine. These things happen all the time. They misplace members of their group regularly. Nothing is wrong.

“Nothing is wrong,” Parker says aloud. It’s a little shaky to his own ears, and he sways on the spot, but he says it again. “Nothing is wrong.”

Something bangs on the back door.

Parker, to what he thinks is his credit, doesn’t scream too loudly, or drop the flashlight. It’s really more of a yelp, and he manages to swing the flashlight to face the back door. It used to be an emergency exit, and he’s never opened it. It’s pretty firmly one-way, so he’s not worried about zombies.

Or, well. He wasn’t worried about zombies until right now.

Slowly, gripping the flashlight with both hands, he walks over to the back door. Something bangs on it again, and he flinches, but he reaches one hand out and pushes the door open.

“Dead!” someone shouts on the other side, and Parker jumps back, reflexively throwing an arm up in front of his face. “Don’t open that door!”

Parker lowers his arm. “Cib!”

“Uh, yeah!” Cib wrenches the door the rest of the way open. He has a case of plastic water bottles tucked under one arm and dried blood under one eye. “Now, I know what you’re thinking, but really, the plastic bottles aren’t bad for the environment, because recycling is a thing rich people do-”

“Dude!” Parker hisses. “Close the door!”

Cib steps inside and lets the door close. “You really shouldn’t open that, by the way, because if I were a zombie you’d be filet high noon right now.”

“Where were you?”

“Supply run!” He drops the water on the floor with a loud smack. “You’re welcome.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone?”

“Well, where did you all think I was, fucking H&M?”

“Dead,” James snaps from the doorway. Parker turns to see him, arms tightly folded, with Steve hovering over one shoulder. “Dude, you can’t just fucking leave like that.”

“Whoa!” Cib frowns. “What’s the issue tissue?”

“No one knew where you were,” Steve says. “Haven’t you ever seen a zombie movie? When you do shit like that, normally it means you died horribly.”

“We were worried,” Parker mumbles. It feels a little lame, next to Steve and James’s real anger, but Cib looks at him in surprise. Parker looks away immediately and shrugs.

“Okay,” Cib says. “Okay. I won’t do it again.”

“New rule,” Steve says abruptly. “Nobody leaves without telling someone first, got it?”

Cib nods. “Nobody leaves without someone fisting them.”

“Jesus actual Christ,” Steve says. “Okay, I think that means you understand, and I don’t want to ask any more questions and find out. Everyone good with the rule?”

Parker nods. James turns and leans into the main room. “Hey! Nobody leaves without telling someone else first from now on, got it?”

“Got it,” Sami Jo yells back. “Now I just need to tell my deaf girlfriend.”

James grimaces. “It’s hard communicating these things,” he mutters.

Cib shrugs. “At least I’m gonna get fisted more now.”

“Not it,” Steve says immediately. “Not it, and I’m leaving.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted it to be you anyways,” Cib mutters as James and Steve both walk away.

Parker picks up the case of water bottles. “Hey, what… what happened to your face?”

Cib lifts a hand to rub at the dry blood. “Eh, missed where the corner of a building was. Bricks and I don’t get along anymore.”

“Not a zombie?”

“I wouldn’t come back if it were a zombie,” he scoffs. “Nah, I’d just leave you guys forever.”

Parker frowns. He knows it’s a joke, but… “Don’t do that.”

Cib grins. “Aw, what’s the matter, parking lot, you gonna miss me?”

“I’m gonna- gonna miss all the water you bring me.” Parker pivots on his heel, so hard that he almost stumbles, and he’s pretty sure Cib is laughing at him. But that doesn’t matter. Even the obvious lie doesn’t matter. He’s just glad that Cib is there, and that he probably understands what Parker didn’t say.

  #

  “Can’t sleep?”

Parker glances up as Steve slides down the wall to sit next to him. “Nah. You?”

Steve gives him a look. “Do I look like I’m asleep?”

Parker shrugs. “Sleepwalking is maybe the least weird thing that’s happening these days.”

“That’s true.” Steven tips his head back, to where it thuds against the wall. “Hey.”

“Hey?”

“What are we doing?”

“I dunno.”

“You don’t know?”

Parker shrugs. “Do you?”

“Maybe.” Steve looks at Parker. “What do you think we’re doing?”

“Right now? Or in the world?”

“Whatever.”

Parker looks up at the ceiling, considering. “I think we’re faking our way through an apocalypse.”

“Still?”

“We’re only a couple months in, none of us are survivalists, we’re all learning to do things we don’t know how to do. I still suck at shooting.”

“We know,” Steve mutters. When Parker glances over, Steve is half smiling at him.

“And I’m still here!” Parker hesitantly bumps his shoulder against Steve’s, and Steve bumps him back. “I’m here and I don’t know what I’m doing, but you guys are keeping me around anyways. And you might not know what you’re doing either.”

“Watch yourself.”

“I said might!”

“We can throw you out in the street.”

“Then who will do your inventory?”

“All of us know how to count, god, Parker.”

Parker grins. He knows it’s ridiculous, this whole thing is ridiculous, but it’s the end of the world and Steve is sitting next to him, tired and alive. Just like always. “Listen, my point is that we don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re doing it anyways.”

“And you think that’s good enough?”

“Do you think we should stop?”

“I don’t think we can.”

Parker shrugs. “There we go.”

“I hate that you’re good at making things less scary,” Steve says, but he’s smiling. He’s falling asleep, Parker can feel it. “Shouldn’t be allowed.”

“One of us had to be.”

“Yeah, it was supposed to be me, you total dick.”

“You’re just gonna have to settle for being good at everything else.”

“Not good enough.”

“Get over it, you one percent bitch.”

Steven laughs aloud at that, and his head finally tips over onto Parker’s shoulder. “Ugh, your bones.”

“My bones?”

“Not comfy.”

“Then go lie down in bed.”

“Fuck off,” Steve mumbles. “Parker, let’s sleep together.”

“I’ve had dreams about this,” Parker answers in a monotone.

“Don’t make it weird.” Steve scoots closer to Parker, relaxing against his side. “Just sit.”

“Close your eyes and think of England, Steve.”

“Is- is that a sex joke? Are you sex joking me?”

“You said we should sleep together.”

“Ugh.” He’s almost asleep now, his weight pressing down on Parker’s shoulder. Like he can’t hold himself up anymore. “Gross.”

“Yeah,” Parker says. “Gross.”

It takes about ten minutes for Steve’s breathing to even out, and for Parker to realize that he’s not going to be able to move without waking him up. Which is fine. Steven sleeps when he can, not every night but most nights. Parker… can’t do that. He didn’t sleep last night either. Naps during the day, sometimes, but almost never at night. He wasn’t going to sleep tonight anyways.

Parker lets out a deep breath. Steven doesn’t move.

“Alright,” Parker mumbles, as quietly as he can. “Okay.”

By the time Steve rolls off him and sprawls out on the floor, Parker has run through his mental list of inventory four times. He gets to his feet, a little numb but still steady, and finds a blanket and a pillow for Steve. It takes him about ten minutes to make his way out into the main room.

James, sitting against the far wall, looks up as Parker walks in. “Hey,” he says softly. None of the sleeping figures stir. There are the pieces of a dismantled revolver in his lap, because that’s what James does when he’s nervous. He takes things apart.

Parker sits down next to him. “Can’t sleep?”

“Woke up early. You know where Steven is?”

“He fell asleep in the back room.”

“I thought you slept back there.”

“Sometimes,” Parker lies. “What’re you up to?”

James shakes his head. “Just trying to find something to do.”

“You wanna play I Spy?”

“You’re not serious.”

“What else are we gonna do?”

“Sit in absolute silence.”

Parker waits. Because he knows James, and because there’s nothing else to do.

James sighs. “I spy, with my little eye, a bitch.”

“There are no mirrors in here.”

“And that’s why you don’t see him.”

Parker laughs, even though it’s a stupid joke. “Alright, you wanna go again? For real this time.”

“Ugh, for real this time,” James mutters, but his shoulders are already less tense. Parker thinks he could stay up all night every night, if it means helping his friends look like people again.

  #

  The next time Jeremy visits, he knocks on the door, which is an improvement by virtue of not being completely terrifying. But he stands outside patiently, and waits for Parker to open the door for him. “Good to see you again.”

“What do you want?” Parker sighs.

“Good way to greet an old friend.” Jeremy leans in. “And it looks like you have some new friends too.”

“I can shoot him if you want,” Sami Jo says, from a few feet behind Parker. She probably already has her gun drawn.

“I wouldn’t,” Jeremy says.

Parker kind of wants to say something snarky, like I would, or like Jeremy made jokes about murdering me before the apocalypse even started, but he stops himself. If Jeremy is visiting, he probably needs something, but he probably also has something for them. The axe is good to have, so maybe this is good to have, too. “Steve’s not here right now,” he says as a warning.

“Then I’ll talk to you instead. Tell your friend to put her gun down.”

“Parker,” Sami Jo says, warningly.

Parker turns to her. “No shooting until we hear him out.”

She lowers her gun, looking reluctant. “Who is this guy?”

“I’m the guy who’s gonna save your lives,” Jeremy says, almost cheerfully.

“Yeah? And how’re you gonna do that?”

Jeremy takes a step back. There’s something behind him resting in a kid’s wagon, something that Parker can’t quite make sense of. It’s huge and metal and comes up to Jeremy’s knees, and it looks heavy-duty.

Sami Jo takes in a sharp breath. “That’s a power generator.”

“Gasoline-powered,” Jeremy says. “Not that there’s much gasoline at the end of the world, but I figure with that big ol’ inventory room you guys have, you must have some fuel.”

They do. Not that Parker’s going to tell Jeremy that.

“What do you want for it?” Sami Jo asks, almost warily.

“And Steve’s not here,” Parker says again.

Jeremy sighs. “That’s a shame. I’d ask him for you again.”

“Again?” Sami Jo repeats.

“Although actually-” Jeremy looks Parker up and down. “Have you been sleeping?”

“Wh- th- you-” Parker scoffs. “Sleeping? In this economy?”

“Ezonomy,” Sami Jo says, because apparently she’s been talking to Cib, but she frowns. “Did you just say you haven’t been sleeping?”

“Sleeping?” Parker repeats. His voice is getting steadily higher, and he can feel Jeremy and Sami Jo’s eyes on him like little pin-prick lasers, and oh god, he’s definitely digging himself deeper here. “No, I just meant- who has- you know, it takes - takes a lot of time-”

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Jeremy!” Parker claps his hands together. “Generator! What- trading?”

“I want a month’s food,” Jeremy says. “For two people.”

“Fuck off,” Sami Jo says immediately.

Jeremy raises his eyebrows. “You sure about that?”

“Wait,” Parker says. “Wait, Steve should be back in an hour or two, can you wait to talk to him?”

“This is a one time only thing, Parker, and there are a lot of people who would give me a month’s food for this.”

“But we don’t-” Parker looks desperately at Sami Jo. “What would we use it for?”

She bites her lip, worrying it between her teeth. “Recharging batteries once we find walkie talkies? Computers? A stovetop?”

“All good ideas,” Jeremy says. “All this can be yours for the low cost of eight cases of MREs.”

“Four,” Sami Jo says immediately. Parker lets out a breath of relief. He’s never been good at bartering.

“Eight,” Jeremy says evenly.

“Five.”

“Seven.”

“ Five. ”

Jeremy’s eyes move over to Parker, too slowly to be anything but deliberate. “I’m not doing five unless you can throw something extra in for me.”

“Five cases, no extra,” Sami Jo says. “Take it or leave it.”

Jeremy is still looking at Parker.

Oh, Parker thinks, and looks at the generator. They could use it. It’d be nice to be able to charge electronics. It’d be good for Cib, to use that for his weird monitor project instead of that complicated-looking system he has involving D batteries and foil. And they can always find more food, right?

Slowly, as subtly as he can, Parker nods.

“Five cases it is,” Jeremy says agreeably. “Help me get the generator out of the wagon, and then Parker can load the cases in.”

“Good,” Sami Jo says, with a vindictive level of satisfaction. Parker is so, so glad that she’s on his side. And she helps him unload it, and Parker takes the wagon to the back.

“What’s going on?” Autumn asks.

Parker jumps, violently, but he turns to where she’s sitting against the wall so she can see his lips. “Autumn! Uh, I forgot you were-”

“Here?” She shrugs. She has a book in her lap, not one that Parker recognizes, but they’ve been building up a mini library for her lately. She inventories that herself, with a lot of care. “I’m quiet. What’s the wagon for?”

“A friend of ours is trading us a power generator for food.”

Autumn’s eyes bulge. “Like, a real generator?”

“He says it’s gasoline-powered. Sami Jo is setting it up in the main room right now.”

“Can I help?”

“If you know how, sure.”

Autumn jumps to her feet, book all but forgotten, and runs out into the main room, leaving Parker alone.

They can afford five cases of MREs, probably. It’s only a week’s worth of food for them, and it’ll last Jeremy and Andrew way longer than that. But he promised something extra, so Parker opens one of the cases of MREs and gets to work.

When he wheels the wagon back out, Sami Jo and Autumn are fiddling with the generator. Jeremy looks up at Parker and the towering stack of MRE cases. “That one looks like it’s been opened.”

“We, uh,” Parker says, trying frantically to think of a lie that fits. “I just, uh. I opened it to make sure it was full. Because that… happens wrong sometimes. You can, uh. Double check, if you want.”

Jeremy opens the case. He doesn’t react as he sees all the water bottles, the ammo, the batteries, and the matchboxes, but when he looks at Parker, his lips are halfway quirked up. Like he knows that this was more than Parker should be giving him. “Yep. All there.”

Parker lets out a deep breath. “Cool. Uh, can you… can you get out? So we can figure out how to tell everyone else what we just did?”

“Sure thing. I’ll see you around.” He turns to Sami Jo. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, thanks for the generator,” Sami Jo says without looking up.

Autumn turns to Jeremy and opens her mouth, but before she says anything, Jeremy lifts his hands and does… something that Parker has to assume is sign language. Autumn’s jaw drops, but she signs something back, less clumsy than him.

Jeremy smirks, in the most unsettling way that he possibly could, and then he wheels the wagon out, and he’s gone.

Parker looks at Autumn. “What did he say?”

“He said he’d keep an ear out for me,” Autumn says, dumbstruck. “What do you think that means?”

“I think it means we should be careful when we make deals with him,” Sami Jo mutters. “Are we good, Parker? Five cases is a lot of food.”

“We’re extra good,” Parker says, with all the confidence he can fake. “Didn’t even hardly dent a thing.”

Sami Jo makes a face. “Make sure you’re more convincing when you say that to Steve and the boys.”

Parker sighs. “Yeah, okay. I’ll go practice.”

  #

  Parker’s working theory - and it’s not perfect - is that Cib is being nice to him because of the generator.

Cib had been ecstatic when he got back and saw the generator. Even Steve and James hadn’t been too mad about the food, because electricity is a hot commodity at the end of the world. They’ve been looking for gasoline for the past couple of weeks, alongside MREs and bullets, and they’ve been finding it. James showed everyone how to empty a car’s gas tank. And it’s been nice, having things like electric lights and Cib’s computer.

So Cib is being nice to Parker. And it’s probably because of the generator, which is fine, because that was a good trade on Parker’s part. Or mostly on Sami Jo’s part. Nobody knows about the extras that he gave Jeremy. Nobody double-checks the inventory. They just accept what Parker says.

Except:

“I thought we had more batteries than this,” Cib says.

Parker’s head jerks up. Cib is standing near one of the shelves, frowning down. “What?”

“I looked at this shelf a couple days ago, I swear-” Cib shakes his head. “Do you think being near zombies makes you stupider?”

Parker blinks a few times. It’s hard to follow Cib’s tangents when he’s well-rested and lucid, let alone when he hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in a couple weeks. “Zombies?”

“Yeah, like, they eat brains so your brains get smaller in self defense.”

“Can brains do that?”

“I don’t know, I’m not a nerdologist.”

“Neurologist, they’re called-” Parker yawns, abruptly. “Fuck.”

“You’re a fuck. Shouldn’t there be more batteries, though?”

“Maybe your brain is shrinking,” Parker says. It’s hard to think straight. He knows James Allen McCune had stopped by again a few days ago, but he can’t remember if he’d given him batteries. The days are blurring together, lately. “Getting smaller ‘cause you’re not using it.”

“Uh, I said my brain, not my dick.”

“Cib, don’t be gross.”

Cib turns and spreads his arms wide. “It’s the end of the world, baby, there’s nothing left that’s clean.”

“You’re a clean,” Parker mumbles.

“Yeah, that’s because I shaved.” Cib snatches a couple of batteries off the shelf. “Hey, carpark.”

“S’not my name.”

“Do you still nap when you’re alone?”

Parker frowns, trying to clear his mind. “What?”

“You don’t sleep during the night,” Cib says. He’s giving Parker an eerily even look. “I can tell. You snore.”

“I would never.”

“You would sometimes.”

“Do you listen for me snoring?”

Cib shrugs. “Maybe it’s nice hearing my friends breathing.”

“That’s creepy.”

“But you quit snoring. Or you just quit sleeping, right?”

“I nap,” Parker says, a little plaintively. He can barely keep his head upright. “Sometimes.”

“When was the last time?”

Parker takes a deep breath and preemptively winces. “What day is it again?”

Cib goes quiet for a few seconds. “Okay, number uno, nobody knows what day it is, calendars are not useful for fighting zombies.”

“You could throw a calendar at a zombie.”

“Papercuts do not stop the undead. Probably.”

Parker nods. “What’s numero dos?”

“Numero dos is, lie down.”

Parker doesn’t want to listen. He doesn’t mean to listen. But he blinks and suddenly he’s on the ground. “I don’t need a nap.”

“Did you sleep yesterday?” Cib asks. He sounds closer to Parker.

“No.”

“Day before?”

“For about an hour.”

“Parker, I can barely count things when I’m awake, how are you supposed to count them with one hour of sleep in the last forty-one?”

“It’s been more than forty-one hours.”

Cib sighs loudly. Very loudly. Parker opens his eyes (did he close them?) just in time to see Cib lower himself on top of him.

“Cib,” Parker says. “Get off.”

“Nope.” He pops the p. Parker can feel it against his cheek. “I’m your wanking blanket.”

“My what? ”

“Your weighted belater.”

“Cib, oh my god-”

“Your waiting baker.”

“Weighted blanket?”

“That’s what I said,” Cib lies, blatantly. “Go to sleep, dude, the world’s still gonna be shit when you wake up. You won’t miss anything.”

“M’s’posed to help Alfredo watch,” Parker says, but he can already feel himself falling asleep. “This is th’one day I need to stay up.”

“I’ll stay up for you,” Cib promises.

Parker wrinkles his nose. “Really?”

“None of you silly bitches are dying on my watch,” Cib says, with a stupid kind of confidence.

Parker wants to say… something. That they can’t guarantee that, or that he doesn’t trust Cib to keep himself safe, or something stupid like asking Cib to stay while he’s asleep. But he doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he lets his eyes slip closed again. “Okay.”

“Cool,” Cib says, and smacks a loud, wet kiss on Parker’s cheek.

Parker wrinkles his nose. “Get your… fucky fish lips away.”

Cib laughs, warm against Parker’s ear. It’s the last thing Parker hears for a long time.

  #

  “Twenty-six hours? ”

“None of us wanted to wake you up,” Autumn says, completely unapologetic.

“I didn’t need sleep that badly!”

“Well, clearly you did, or else you wouldn’t have slept.”

“I sleep!”

Autumn fixes him with a deadpan look. Parker sighs. “I nap.”

“When was the last time you got more than three hours of sleep at a time?”

Parker grimaces. It was probably before Autumn and Sami Jo joined up, and everyone probably knows it. “Where is everyone?”

“Steve and James are trying to figure out who’s still camping near us.”

“Cib and Sami Jo?”

“Supply run.”

“Oh,” Parker says. He doesn’t know why he’s disappointed. “So it’s just us?”

Autumn nods, looking a little too knowing. “Yeah, Sami Jo said she was getting weirded out by Cib watching you sleep, so he dragged him away.”

“So you’re watching me sleep instead?”

“Nope.” Autumn lifts up her book. “Reading.”

Parker blinks. “You’re reading World War Z? Was the end of the world not enough zombies for you?”

“They didn’t get very much right in the book,” she deadpans. “We don’t have anything to do, by the way. Cib said he took a few batteries, but that’s it, so there’s no point in recounting inventory.”

“Do you think we can come up with something to do?”

“Do you have any ideas?”

Parker glances around the inventory room. It’s all neatly ordered, but it also all looks… well, like it’s been in a zombie apocalypse for three months. “You wanna clean?”

“Seriously?”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Autumn says, but she dog-ears her page and puts the book down. “Do we have cleaning supplies?”

“Some.”

“What kind of ‘some?’”

“Clorox wipes.” Parker pauses, thinking. “Paper towels.”

“Do paper towels count?”

“They do if you clean things with them.”

“We should just Clorox all the hard surfaces,” Autumn decides. “Give us a little bit of a shine. We could use some shine.”

“Something shiny at the end of the world,” Parker says, and Autumn grins at him. And he wishes he’d had the chance to know her in a world without zombies, he really does. Her and Sami Jo both. All of them together. They could’ve been something spectacular, he thinks, something spectacular with a goal bigger than just staying alive.

Autumn takes the lead on the cleaning. Parker thinks it’s partly because she was bored, partly because she wants to get done and finish her book, and partly because he’s still moving very, very slowly. He’s going to have to dig up some sleeping pills, because this sleep schedule is kind of untenable.

It takes Parker until they start wiping down the sleeping bags that he notices the humming. He stops and turns to Autumn without thinking. She doesn’t notice, just keeps humming something soft that Parker doesn’t quite recognize, until--

“Bon Jovi,” he blurts out.

Autumn blinks a couple times and swivels her head towards him. “Did you say something?”

“Are you humming Bon Jovi?”

“Yeah, it’s a good song.”

“Do you…” Parker stops. “Is it insensitive to ask if you listen to a lot of music?”

Autumn’s eyebrows slowly climb up her face. “Not really?”

“Then do you?”

“I don’t listen to much these days.”

“Did you?”

She nods. “I listened to a lot of classic rock when I was younger.”

“Bon Jovi, obviously.”

“Yeah, Bon Jovi. I liked The Eagles.”

“Can I ask what happened?”

“I was in a really bad car wreck when I was twelve.” She shrugs. “Head injuries are weird. Lost most of my hearing from it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m fine with ASL and lip reading.” She smiles wanly at him, and Parker smiles back reflexively. “I miss my hearing aids, though.”

“You had hearing aids?”

“Yeah, but they quit working the day before the whole zombie thing.”

He winces. “Bad timing.”

“This whole thing is bad timing,” Autumn agrees. “But it could be worse.”

“I think you’re the only other person who says things like that.”

“James does sometimes.”

“Maybe James is just handling this whole thing well.”

Autumn snorts. “Are you implying you’re handling this well?”

“Are you implying I’m not?”

“You just slept for twenty-six hours.”

Parker sighs. “That’s going to be a trump card in conversations now, huh?”

Autumn pats his shoulder awkwardly. “You brought it on yourself.”

He knows she’s right, sort of. He would’ve slept if he could’ve, honestly, but it didn’t work out that way. It took Cib lying on top of him, and that was a level of weird that he’s not quite willing to dedicate himself to dealing with regularly yet.

“It’s not my fault that Cib physically held me down and made me sleep,” he says, and that same knowing look from earlier flicks across Autumn’s face. Parker frowns. “What?”

“Nothing,” Autumn says, just a little shit-eating, and looks back down to where she’s Clorox-wiping a sleeping bag.

“Autumn-”

She starts humming Bon Jovi again, with a little more determination than before.

“Fine,” Parker mutters. But he starts cleaning again. And if he starts humming along, it’s not like Autumn will say anything about it.

  #

  Steve and James give them shit for cleaning at the end of the world, and they give Parker gasoline and sleeping pills. They also give Parker shit for not sleeping, which he knew they would. And it’s shaping up to be just another night at the end of the world, and then:

Cib kicks the door in, narrowly avoiding the barbed wire trap, and shouts, “Who’s ready to get fucking wasted? ”

“We found vodka,” Sami Jo says behind him. She has three or four bottles in her arms, and Cib is brandishing another one in the air. “Like, a lot of vodka.”

Steven turns to Parker. “What do we have in the way of glassware and mixers?”

“Glassware, yes. Mixers, probably not.”

“Steve,” Cib says, offended, “are you trying to pussy out of drinking straight vodka?”

“I’m not trying to pussy out, I just think it’s a bad idea-”

“Dude,” James says. “Let’s get drunk. ”

Autumn jumps to her feet. “I’ve been stashing something for this in the library, hold on!”

“Stashing-” Parker turns to look at her, but she’s already running off to inventory. He sighs. “Do you all have stashes?”

Everyone nods. Parker wonders what the hell the point of doing inventory is if everyone has secret stashes.

“Where’d you even find that?” James asks, peering at the bottles.

“Oh, there were a ton more where these came from,” Sami Jo says cheerfully. “We just grabbed what we could carry. No idea why someone was hoarding vodka.”

“Because it’s the end of the world,” Steve points out. “If I were in charge of inventory, we’d have a lot less food and a lot more vodka.”

“And that’s why I’m in charge,” Parker says. Everyone ignores him.

“Okay!” Autumn reappears, holding two massive bottles of Sprite. “We can mix it with this.”

James frowns. “Were you just hoarding Sprite?”

“Babe,” Sami Jo says, eyes wide. “Holy shit, I love you.”

Autumn smiles. “Love you too.”

“Enough fucking talking, ” Cib groans. “We do enough of that on normal days, why don’t we start drinking?”

“Cib has a point.” Steve shudders. “Ugh, it really is the end of the world.”

Cib points at him. “I’ve been right about things at least six and a quarter times.”

“And how many times have you been wrong?”

“Six and three quarters.” He shrugs. “At least.”

Parker snorts. Cib finally looks at him, and his eyes light up. “Oh, hey, parkade’s awake!”

“Took him twenty-six hours,” Autumn says as she sits next to Parker, cross-legged. Parker rolls his eyes, but she just grins at him, a little slyly, before turning back to Cib. “He didn’t wake up till you were gone. I think he missed you.”

“Or maybe he subconsciously knew it wasn’t safe till Cib was gone,” James deadpans.

Cib casts James a deeply offended look. “He was probably safer with me than Sprite stash.”

“Hey.” Sami Jo nudges him. “That’s my girlfriend.”

“Hell yeah, she is.” Cib grins. “Someone go find glasses, I wanna get sloshier than a June fish.”

James frowns. “Hey, dude, a June fish ate my dad. Show some respect.”

Cib bows so deeply that his nose almost touches his knee. Parker grins as he gets to his feet. “I’ll get glasses.”

Autumn pats Parker’s leg as he passes her. “Don’t pass out.”

“I’m not gonna need sleep for a couple days, don’t worry.”

“That’s, like, the most worrying thing you could possibly say,” Steve says. “‘Oh, no big deal, I won’t sleep for two days,’ Parker, we got you sleeping pills for a reason.”

“Oh!” Cib reaches into his pocket and fishes out a prescription bottle. “Hey, catch!”

He lobs the bottle. Parker catches it and looks at the label. It’s more sleeping meds, because of course it is. “Guys, I don’t need-”

“Twenty-six hours,” say Autumn, James, and Sami Jo, all together.

“That’s half a week,” Cib says solemnly. “C’mon, take the pills.”

“But not tonight,” Steve says. “Because tonight if you pass out it will be because you’re drunk, or else we’ll use you as zombie bait.”

“I can run from zombies.”

“You’re gonna have to if you don’t find us vodka glasses.” Cib plops down. “C’mon, tall boy.”

Parker leaves to the sound of Steve yelling that there’s nothing wrong with being tall, god, Cib. When he comes back, glasses in hand, Steve is sitting on Cib. He doesn’t know why these things surprise him anymore.

“Ooh, I’m pouring!” Sami Jo, sitting next to Autumn, grabs one of the bottles. “Gimme the glasses.”

Parker sets all the glasses down in front of her and goes to Autumn’s other side. Cib smacks at Steve’s side until he gets up and then scoots over to where Parker’s sitting, pressing one of his knees against Parker’s. “Do we have a lot of glassware just back there?”

“We do, actually.”

“Well, no shit, this was a kitchen store,” James points out. “That’s why we have knives.”

“Do we have bowls?” Cib asks.

“We have bowls.”

“And spatulas?”

“Yeah, we have some of those.”

“What about immersion blenders?”

“Cib, you’re never going to use an immersion blender,” Steve snaps.

Cib shrugs, unbothered. “You could mix up a zombie’s brain real good with one of those lil bastards, is all I’m saying.”

Steve gags, and everyone else groans. “You just almost made me spill the vodka,” Sami Jo complains.

“I’m gonna make you guys brain soup,” Cib announces. “It’s gonna be delish.”

“Cib,” Steve says, strangled. “Cib, oh my god, stop-”

“Is this why you wanted the zombie eyeballs?” James demands. Steve goes even paler.

“Put your head between your knees,” Autumn advises. “It helps with nausea.”

Steve does, but he shakes his head. “I think it’s too late for that. Oh, god. Oh, shit .”

“You know what’ll settle your stomach?” Cib smacks Steve’s back, so hard that Parker winces in sympathy. “Vodka.”

“I’m never going to know peace again.” Steve huddles even further into himself. “Every time I close my eyes, I’m going to think about Cib cracking open a zombie head and pureeing it.”

“Like, slicing the top of the head off?” Parker asks without thinking.

James snorts. “Oh, yeah, let me just take my guillotine and chop off part of a zombie skull, that won’t get bone in my brain soup at all.”

“Well, but the skull can act like a soup bowl if you do that.”

“We need to stop,” Steve says. “Seriously, guys, this is-”

“Aw!” Cib shakes his head. “What’s the matter, Steve-o? Gettin’ a little queasy at the thought of brains over easy?”

“I hate you,” Steve says with feeling. “Cib, I hate you, and I hate Parker too.”

“Hey,” Parker says, more out of principle than because he believes it.

“You’re the one who brought up skull bowls, and I-” he shudders violently. “Oh, my god, it’s a zombie apocalypse.”

“Has been for about three months.” Sami Jo sets a glass of vodka and Sprite in front of Steve. “I think you need this.”

“I need a real shower and for zombies to go back to being fiction,” Steve says, but he sits up enough to take the glass anyways. “Thanks.”

Sami Jo hands two glasses to Parker, and he obediently passes one to Cib. “Boys, I’d like to propose a toast.”

James grabs his glass. “What’re we toasting?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I just wanted to bring it up.

“We’re not dead,” Autumn suggests. “That’s kinda cool.”

Sami Jo beams at her. “You’re kinda cool.”

“I’m getting nauseous again,” Steve announces.

“Okay, toast!” James lifts up his glass. “Everyone go around and say something.”

“You first,” Sami Jo says expectantly.

“Uhhh, shit, uh-” James wavers, but raises his glass higher. “So here’s to vodka, for existing even when society stopped.”

“Here’s to kitchen stores,” Steven adds. “For being the reason we made it this far.”

“And here’s to bitchin’ stories.” Cib puts his glass in the middle. “Because if we survive this, oh, man, I’m going to write a book. Parker, say a toast.”

Parker opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again - oh god, there are so many things and people he could thank-

“Parker!” James shouts.

“Okay, okay, here’s-” Parker searches frantically for something. “I don’t know, here’s to Cib for making me sleep for a day, and you guys for letting me.”

Autumn nods and lifts her glass. “Here’s to being okay even though I can’t hear shit.”

“And here’s to us.” Sami Jo raises her glass. “Because no fucking zombies could take us down.”

“Hear, hear,” shouts James, and all of them clink their glasses together. Parker only manages to clink a couple before everyone’s pulling theirs back, and so he does the same and drinks.

“Oh god,” Cib gasps after a few seconds. “Guys, I forgot how good booze is.”

“I’ll drink to that,” James says, and grabs another one of the bottles.

“No, you always pour drinks weird.” Steve reaches out. “Let me-”

“Dude, no, I’m going to-”

“James, I swear, if you ruin this for me-”

“Hey.” Cib bumps his knee against Parker’s. “You toasted me.”

“Uh,” Parker says. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

“Cool,” Cib says. “I like you better after you sleep. You’re toastier.”

Parker raises his eyebrows. “I… okay?”

Cib nods, like that’s the end of that, and holds out his glass. “James, gimme more vodka.”

“No!” Steve shouts. Autumn laughs, falling over on Sami Jo in the process, and Sami Jo snakes an arm around Autumn’s waist.

“Booze,” Cib is yelling, “I wanna drink, quit fucking jerking me off-” and his knee is still against Parker’s, pressing into him. It’s nice. Parker thinks he could get used to this.

  #

  The third time Jeremy shows up, they don’t have food to give him.

Which isn’t the same as not having food at all, it’s just that it’s getting harder and harder to find food. They’ve been branching farther out in search of it, but it’s not helping. It doesn’t matter how many times Parker goes through their inventory, or when they agree to lighter rations. They’re just… running out.

So Jeremy shows up, and Parker’s ready to turn him away. He’s pretty sure James and Sami Jo are, too, which is even better, because it means Parker doesn’t have to actually talk to Jeremy.

Except as soon as he’s inside, Jeremy says, “I’m not here to trade.”

“We’re not giving you anything for free,” Sami Jo snaps.

Jeremy shakes his head. “You guys have done me a solid a couple times now.” He looks at Parker, eyes resting on him for a couple seconds, long enough that Parker knows he means the extra supplies. “So I wanted to pass on something that I heard that’d help you.”

James crosses his arms. “No strings attached?”

“Not a single thread.”

“Just out of the goodness of your heart?”

Jeremy cracks a smile at that, a little wry. “You might be getting all the goodness I have left.”

“Which is?”

“A rumor. Or call it a tip. Something I’ve heard.” Jeremy glances around. “Is it just you guys here?”

“I don’t see why that matters,” Sami Jo says sharply.

Jeremy shrugs. “It’s a simple question.”

“It’s just us,” Parker says. James and Sami Jo turn to glare at him in unison, and he hunches his shoulders defensively, but he doesn’t back down. “So whatever it is, you can tell us.”

“Okay,” Jeremy says. “I’ve heard a rumor that there’s an abandoned camp about five miles north of here.”

“There are lots of abandoned camps,” James points out. “There are zombies in the north, we’re not going up there.”

“Well, you might want to. There’s an abandoned encampment of tents in a Whole Foods parking lot. Huge one. They have a bit of food. Medical supplies.” Jeremy looks at Sami Jo. “Hearing aids.”

Sami Jo takes in a sharp breath. “You’re lying.”

“I’m repeating a rumor. Not a lot of people need hearing aids at the end of the world.”

Sami Jo swallows. Parker knows what she’s thinking. It’s probably a lot like what he’s thinking. It’d be a lot easier for Autumn if she had hearing aids right now.

“Say you’re telling the truth,” James says. “Why didn’t you bring them?”

Jeremy snorts. “My goodwill only goes so far. You’re lucky I came out here to tell you.”

“Thank you,” Parker blurts out. “Even if we don’t go and- you know-”

Sami Jo whirls on him. “What do you mean, if we don’t? We’re getting those.”

“Well, I mean, we should at least try, or consider it, but-”

“ Consider it?”

“Guys,” James says sharply. “Not now.”

“You’re welcome,” Jeremy says, amiable, a little cool. “We’re even now.”

“Is Andrew still okay?” Parker asks, a little desperate.

Jeremy nods, thankfully. “I’ll bring him over sometime to prove it.”

“Good,” James says, “because I thought you ate him.”

“No, not him.”

“Uh,” Sami Jo says.

Jeremy grins, or really sort of snarls. It’s threatening. Parker is threatened. “I’ll see you guys around.”

The minute Jeremy is gone, Sami Jo puts her hands on her hips. “Okay, if we leave now, we’d need to leave a note or something so that everyone knows where we went if they get back early, but we could make it five miles-”

“Whoa, wait, Sami Jo.” James holds up his hands. “We don’t know when they’re coming back.”

“That’s why we’d leave the note.”

“But we can’t just leave our home abandoned for the foreseeable future.”

“It’s not abandoned, Alfredo’s still here.”

“And it’s against the rules.”

“No, we just have to tell someone where we’re going, and that’s what the note would be for.”

“The-” James sighs. “It’s dangerous! Just leaving like that would be dangerous.”

“And it’s not dangerous what everyone else is doing? They’re out looking for food, it’s been two days, we don’t know what kind of settlements are out there, or zombies, or-”

“Which is why we need to stay here!”

“Staying here isn’t going to get us anything.” Sami Jo’s glare sharpens. “We need to get those hearing aids.”

“And I’m with you on that, one hundred percent.” James looks at Sami Jo earnestly. “I want those. Autumn needs those, I get that, I want those for her. But if we just leave now, it could screw the whole group over. And Jeremy was right, when he said that not a lot of people need hearing aids. We can probably wait a day or two.”

Sami Jo shakes her head. “I don’t want to wait.”

“Neither do I,” James says. Parker’s pretty sure he means it, too. “But it’s for the best.”

“Maybe it’s for our best. But I’m thinking about Autumn’s best.” She pivots on her heel and goes back to the inventory room, stomping the whole way.

James looks at Parker. “It’d be dangerous,” he says again.

“I know,” Parker says. “End of the world, everything’s dangerous now.”

“Got a lot of ways things could go wrong.”

“I don’t think we have to fight about-”

James groans. “God, that wasn’t a fight! Everything is completely normal, you-” he waves Parker off. “Never mind, you don’t know how to handle minor conflict. Get out of here.”

Parker’s pretty sure that deciding if they go on a dangerous expedition for hearing aids isn’t a minor conflict, but he’s not about to risk pissing James off even more. Instead, he goes to the inventory room, where Sami Jo is sitting against a wall. Right where Autumn normally sits. She looks up at him as he walks in, eyes bright. “We have to get them.”

“I know,” Parker says, and sinks down to sit next to her. “We will.”

“We have to,” Sami Jo repeats, voice lower this time. “This isn’t - I don’t mean hypothetically, I mean we need to go and get them. Leave tonight, if we can.”

Parker pauses and points at her, then at himself. “We?”

“I don’t want to go alone.”

“But James said-”

“I don’t care what James said!” She reaches out and clasps his hand in both of hers. “Come on, please, for Autumn? Or for me? Whichever one will get you to do it.”

It’s a bad idea. James is completely right that it’s dangerous. There are zombies, and five miles north is a dangerous bike ride, and an even more dangerous walk, and to go at night on top of that would be the worst choice of all.

But it’s Autumn. Autumn, who hums Bon Jovi when she wipes down sleeping bags, and who keeps bottles of Sprite hidden away from Parker. And it’s Sami Jo, squeezing his hand in hers, staring at him like he has the potential to save the world. They’re his friends. And it’s… kind of nice to feel important.

Slowly, slowly, Parker nods. And Sami Jo’s face splits into a breathtaking smile.

  #

  “Hey.” There’s a hand on Parker’s shoulder, jostling him. “Get up.”

Parker’s eyes fly open. Sami Jo is standing over him. He takes a second to shake off the last of his sleepiness and sits up. “Are we going?”

“We’re going. Everyone else got back, so we have the bikes.”

Parker clambers to his feet. “They’re okay?”

“Yeah, they’re all asleep right now. But we’d better get going.” She leaves the stockroom, and Parker follows her, only stopping when she bends down near where Autumn’s sleeping.

Parker takes stock of the situation, as quickly as he can. There are supplies laid out in the middle of the floor: a couple of cases of MREs, a backpack that looks like it’s full of something, and an empty backpack. It’s not a lot, he thinks ruefully, but it’s something. It’ll last them a little while longer.

Steve is asleep next to James, one of his noodle arms slung across James’s shoulders. Cib is next to them both, breathing steadily, slowly. Parker watches his chest rise and fall, probably longer than is normal, but he thinks he’s entitled. He’s about to make a bad choice, he can take comfort where he can get it.

Parker picks up the empty backpack. “You ready?”

Sami Jo smooths back Autumn’s hair and stands up again. “Yeah,” she whispers, voice a little thicker. “Let’s go.”

Neither of them say anything as they leave the kitchen store, or as they grab the bikes from the toy store. As soon as they’re back outside with the bikes, Sami Jo shivers. “S’cold out.”

“Take my jacket,” Parker offers instantly.

“No, you shouldn’t be cold. I can get a new one-”

“No, it’s okay,” Parker says. “I don’t get cold.”

Sami Jo stares at him. “You mean you don’t get cold easily, or-”

“At all.”

“Why not?”

Parker shrugs and unzips his jacket. “Come on, I don’t need it.”

“I’m afraid of you,” Sami Jo informs him, but she slips the jacket on anyways. “Come on, we’ve got five miles to go.”

They ride in silence. Parker still doesn’t go out much, partly because of personal preference, partly because James pointed out one time that Parker’s the only one of them who’s any good at rationing food and they’d probably be fucked if he died. He’d sounded really disappointed when he’d brought that up. Parker tries not to think about it.

The city, his city, is nothing like he remembers. He loves Los Angeles, or at least what it used to be. He loved it and its shitty traffic, and its shitty takeout restaurants, and its shitty people. He wonders if maybe, one day, he could learn to love what it became. Or maybe he doesn’t have the time to love a new city. Maybe he’d be better off saving that love for other things.

“I miss how things used to be,” he says, when they’re about halfway into the ride. He looks over just in time to see Sami Jo wiping at her eyes furiously. “Whoa, you okay?”

“The wind,” she says, a little desperately. “Drying my eyes out.”

“You sure?”

Sami Jo slows to a stop and shakes her head, wipes a little harder with the sleeve of Parker’s jacket, waits until Parker pulls up next to her. “I hate leaving her.”

“You’ll be coming back.”

“I don’t know that. I never know that.”

“But you have every time so far.”

“I don’t want this to be happening,” Sami Jo rasps. Before Parker can even begin unpacking that - and oh, boy, is there a lot to unpack - she hops off the bike and buries her face in his chest.

Parker automatically lifts his hands to pat her shoulders, trying to ignore the alarm bells going off in his brain warning him that he doesn’t know what to do. “It’s gonna be fine,” he says, not quite because he believes it or because it’s what she needs to hear. He just doesn’t know what else to do.

After a few seconds, Sami Jo nods against his chest and steps away. “Let’s go,” she says briskly. He can almost ignore the way her eyes are rimmed red.

Parker doesn’t say another word until they find the Whole Foods parking lot. And even then, all he says is “Holy shit.”

When Jeremy said an abandoned encampment of tents, Parker was thinking half a dozen, maybe a dozen, spread out through the parking lot. But it’s huge. It’s a sprawling mass of tents all zipped together, like a hub. And it’s completely silent.

Sami Jo climbs off her bike. “We’ll start at the one closest to us and make our way through.”

Parker nods, trying to swallow down his panic. This wasn’t just a few people, not the way that their group is a few people. This was a group. This was a miniature society, and they’re just… gone.

“Do we have a flashlight?” Sami Jo asks as they reach the first tent.

“Yeah.” Parker rummages around in his backpack until he finds it. “Are we bringing the bikes with us?”

“No, we’ll just leave them in this first tent.” She reaches out. “You ready?”

“I don’t think this is-”

Sami Jo unzips the tent. It doesn’t immediately smell like rotting flesh or anything gross like that, which a good first sign. “Let’s go.”

Parker follows Sami Jo. It’s easy, because she doesn’t flinch as she leads him through. She just points out things that are worth grabbing. Painkillers. Sleeves of crackers. Bandages. Her head is on a swivel the whole time, one hand worrying at the hem of her shirt.

“What do they look like?” Parker asks in the ninth tent.

“Sort of like a case for glasses.” Sami Jo lifts her hands. “This big.”

“But what if they’re not in the case?”

“I really need you not to say that.”

“No saying that,” he repeats obediently.

They find old clothes. They find soap, and hand sanitizer, and shampoo. They find bullets. They find an empty duffel bag in the fifteenth tent, and Parker grabs it and starts loading all the food that he can carry. They find eyeglasses case after eyeglasses case, and every time there are no hearing aids inside.

“James is gonna kill us if we come back without hearing aids,” Sami Jo says conversationally, after the sixth case that has prescription glasses. “After ditching in the middle of the night when he specifically told us not to.”

“He might… not,” Parker says.

Sami Jo gives him a look.

He sighs. “Yeah, he’s gonna be pissed.”

“At least we’re finding other things.” She nudges a pillow with her foot. “You think we could steal this?”

“What if we get lice?”

“Do we have lice shampoo?”

“Would you use lice shampoo?”

“I don’t use regular shampoo.”

“When was the last time you washed your hair?”

Sami Jo shrugs and wanders into the next tent, pushing another pillow back with her foot. “I probably already have lice.”

“We share pillows!”

“Wash your hair better.”

Parker shudders and tries to resist scratching at his scalp. “Ugh.”

“That’s why I wash Autumn’s hair sometimes,” Sami Jo says, moving tents again. Parker pauses long enough to grab a couple of water bottles before following her. “There’s not a lot we can do to take care of each other, outside of, you know, shooting people to keep each other safe. But I can do that for her.”

“How long were you dating?” Parker picks up a couple of granola bars, and she wordlessly hands him a bottle of Neosporin. “Before… you know.”

“Five or six months?” She makes a face. “We were in that getting-serious stage, and then a few zombies crashed our date night, so it was kind of a trial by fire.”

“But you stuck through it?”

Sami Jo nods, a little wistfully, and kicks the sleeping bag in the tent, ignoring the way the asphalt scuffs her shoes. “Yeah. We’re doing okay. You bozos are helping.”

Parker smiles automatically, and then looks down. “There’s something under the sleeping bag.”

“What?” Sami Jo squats down and moves the edge of the sleeping bag over. There’s something peeking out from just under where she kicked it. Something that looks like a glasses case.

Parker bends over. “Is that-”

She snatches it up and opens it. There are these two weird, flesh-colored, crescent-shaped things with wires coming out of them.

“Uh,” he says, “is that what they look like?”

“Yeah,” Sami Jo says. She laughs, once, and snaps the case shut. “We found them.”

“Do we need… a charger, or batteries, or-”

“There’s a charging cord in there.” She gets to her feet and smiles at Parker, bright and tremulous. Parker smiles back, because how could he not? It’s Sami Jo. “We can- do you want to keep looting?”

“What?”

“We’re only, like, a quarter of the way through this whole maze, and I didn’t see any signs of zombies nearby.” She shrugs. “We came all this way, we might as well make it worth it.”

Parker glances around. “I mean… it couldn’t hurt, right?”

“Maybe we’ll find more hearing aids,” she muses. “Or scissors, or something.”

“Do we need scissors?”

“You tell me, stock boy.”

“We could use more scissors.” He clicks the flashlight on and shines it down the end of the tent tunnel. “We should keep going.”

Sami Jo grins, bright and sharp. “Let’s do it. This is our turf now.”

  #

  They get back to the kitchen store before dark, but only barely. It’s not because of danger, thank god, it’s because they stole more things than they could carry. Sami Jo has two backpacks on and a duffel slung over the handlebars of her bike, and Parker has twice that. Sami Jo also has the hearing aids case in one hand. She didn’t even let go for the bike ride home. Parker is impressed, and more than a little intimidated.

As soon as the bikes are stashed in the toy store and they have all their bags unloaded onto the floor, Sami Jo looks at him. “I’m only gonna say this once.”

“Okay?”

“Thank you for coming with me.”

Parker blinks. “But you would’ve gone alone.”

“I would’ve.” She smiles, tersely, genuinely. “I’m glad I didn’t have to.”

Sami Jo’s smile does this weird… thing to Parker, where it makes him smile back. It’s not intentional or conscious or anything. She just has a nice smile. Maybe it’s because she’s the only person here who doesn’t make fun of him every day. Maybe it’s just the Sami Jo effect. Either way, he smiles back.

He’s still smiling at her as the door flies open. Sami Jo reacts first, whipping a pistol out of her belt. Parker’s still reaching for his when he realizes who it is. “James-”

“You fucker, ” James shouts, and punches Parker so hard that Parker loses his balance.

It takes a second for Parker’s brain to catch up with his body, and when he does, he’s sprawled out on the floor, and his cheek is throbbing. Sami Jo is yelling, and James isn’t yelling back, but he sounds pissed. Really pissed.

“Fuck,” Parker moans, and pushes himself back to his feet. “James, what the hell?”

“What the hell me ?” James takes a step towards him, and Parker flinches back instinctively. “What the hell were you two doing just leaving in the middle of the night?”

“We got supplies,” Sami Jo snaps. “Sue us.”

“We have rules! You can’t leave in the middle of the night like that, that’s how people die.”

“But we’re not dead!”

“Not this time.”

Parker lifts a hand to his cheek. “James, come on, let us explain. Just listen.”

“You guys could’ve waited,” Steve says. When Parker looks over, Steve doesn’t quite make eye contact, and neither does Cib, from where he’s standing in the doorway. Both of them look pretty goddamn angry. “We all got back before you left, you could’ve woken us up or waited till morning.”

“But look at all the shit we got!” Sami Jo gestures at the duffels and backpacks. “And we got the hearing aids, so you guys can kiss my ass, because there’s no way to guarantee those would’ve been there if we waited.”

“That was stupid,” Steve says. Parker’s stomach sinks. He sounds like he means it. “Guys, we have these rules for a reason.”

“And we broke them for a reason.”

James points at her. “You broke them for a reason.”

Parker frowns. “What?”

He swings his arm around to point at Parker. “You didn’t have a reason.”

“I couldn’t let Sami Jo go alone!”

“You could’ve asked me,” James says. “Or- shit, you guys left after everyone got back, you could’ve asked any one of us.”

Parker shakes his head. “Wait, why couldn’t I have gone?”

“Parker’s the one who found the aids,” Sami Jo adds.

“But he’s also the one who keeps track of all our shit!” James’s arms twitch, like he wants to reach out, or run his hands through his hair, or do… something. “God, you’re not getting it.”

“You need to think about our side here,” Steve says. “Imagine we all wake up and you’re both gone. We ask Alfredo if he saw anything, and he says he saw you guys take our bikes and a backpack in the middle of the night. And that’s all we know.”

“Alfredo thought you guys ran off in a romantic passion,” James adds. “Not that Autumn believed him.”

Sami Jo’s fingers tighten around the hearing aid case. “God, Autumn- listen, not that this isn’t important or whatever, but-”

“She’s waiting for you,” James says. Sami Jo practically sprints out towards her, darting between the boys like they’re not even there. And, okay, Parker can’t blame her, because of course she wants to leave. But he… can’t.

“Guys,” he says weakly. “It was fine, I just wanted-”

“Shut up,” Cib says, still without looking at Parker. And it’s not the words that make Parker listen. It’s how evenly he says them. Cib’s not a venomous person, not really, but he’s looking at Parker so coldly that Parker wants to run away.

Parker’s mouth snaps shut.

“Look,” Steven says, and he finally makes eye contact with Parker. “You were doing a good thing for your friend, whatever, that’s great for you. But the rest of us woke up, and the one person who knew off the top of his head how long we have left to live was gone.”

Parker’s heart stops, just for a second. “I didn’t think about it like that,” he says hoarsely. He’d always figured that between the stashes and the way everyone rolled their eyes when he said he was in charge of inventory, it was more of an honorary title than anything. It’s not like they couldn’t have picked up the pieces without him. He was never supposed to be that important.

“You didn’t-” James hands both fly up to his head, raking through his hair furiously. “You didn’t stop to think about the rest of us before you and Sami Jo ran off to play hero?”

Parker shakes his head. “No, that’s not- I figured you guys would be fine without us for a few hours, it was-”

“You didn’t ever stop to consider things going wrong? ”

“Of course we did, that was why i went instead of letting her go alone-”

“Parker,” Steven sighs, and now he doesn’t even look angry. Just disappointed. Just tired. “Come on.”

“I’m sorry,” Parker says helplessly. “Guys, I’m- I didn’t think, I should’ve-”

“You were being selfish,” Cib says. Parker looks at him, searching his face desperately, but Cib is staring at him without warmth, or familiarity, or… anything. “That’s all it was.”

Parker swallows, tries to keep the tears from welling up. “Cib-”

Cib just shakes his head. “Selfish,” he repeats, like an indictment, and the bottom of Parker’s stomach drops out. He opens his mouth but Cib is already turning and leaving, and James and Steve are following after him, and Parker is alone, alone, alone.

Selfish.

He doesn’t remember falling but he’s on the ground, braced on his hands and knees, shoulders heaving around his ears. There’s something that feels like broken glass digging into his palms, but he can’t make himself move, he’s not sure he could stand up or even sit, he-

Selfish.

Cib’s knee, pressing against Parker’s thigh as he tried to get more vodka. Cib’s hand against Parker’s chest, trying to get Parker out of his space, but still so, so gentle. Cib, lying on top of Parker and trying to force him to sleep. Cib looking at Parker like they were strangers, like he cut ties in that instant, like Parker was nothing to him, like-

Selfish.

Steve’s there, standing in the doorway when Parker comes back to himself. He’s still shaking and his cheeks are wet, even though he doesn’t remember crying. But he finally sits up straight, rubs some of grit off his palms, wipes his cheeks clean, ignores the way it throbs where he got punched.

“I thought,” Steve starts, and then shakes his head. “They were a little harsh.”

It’s probably the closest to an apology Parker’s going to hear, so he takes a deep, shuddering breath and tries to think what Steve would want to hear right now. “I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t have left,” Steve says, “but I think they understand. James is mad, Cib was just scared.”

“I fucked up,” Parker croaks.

Steve shrugs. “We all will, at some point,” he says, and it’s not kind, and it’s not helpful, but it’s something. “Let’s just bring this shit inside and we can figure out what to do from there.”

“Okay,” Parker says. And it’s not okay, and it doesn’t feel okay, and he can’t stop thinking about Cib looking at him like he wasn’t there anymore. But he’s pretty sure it has to be okay.

  #

  The first thing Parker does is close the door to the stockroom.

Nobody says anything to him as he walks in, and Steve leaves him with the new supplies and the old supplies, and he looks at the door and thinks, I can’t do this. And he closes the door, and he gets to work.

Five hours later, the entire inventory system is different. Three hours after that it’s different again. He barely remembers to open the door and put out enough MREs for everyone for the night. He adds a few shitty pre-packaged desserts, too, ones that he was holding onto for a special occasion. This isn’t special, but he thinks he needs to do it anyways.

Parker restructures the inventory again, and again, and one more time. Parker gives everyone more than enough food, because they can afford it now, and because he’s not going to let his friends starve just because he doesn’t feel like talking to them. Or just because they hate him.

“You could say something,” says famous actor James Allen McCune, who comes in through the back door during the second day of Parker’s exile. “Say sorry.”

“I don’t think this is something you can fix by saying sorry,” Parker mutters, digging through one of the food boxes. “I got punched.”

“I got punched one time for trying to eat someone’s pet possum,” James says. “But I still said sorry.”

“Did you eat the possum?”

He scoffs. “Of course.”

“Awesome,” Parker says. The only person who’s still talking to him killed and ate someone’s pet. “I guess the end of the world makes us all do weird things.”

“What? No, this was two or three years ago.”

Parker closes his eyes. Maybe Cib was right. Maybe he should just leave. It has to be better than this.

“You guys have a lot of stuff in here,” James adds. “Do you think you have roaches? Or rats?”

“What would you do about them?”

James shrugs. “I’d eat the rats. Can’t eat roaches, they have diseases.”

“And the rats don’t?”

“Rats hold up better to being cooked.”

“What do you even do when you’re not harassing me for food?”

“Harass other people for food.” James thinks about it. “Get lost looking for other people to harass.”

Parker gives him a compass, partly as a joke and partly out of genuine concern. And he gives him more food than normal, partly out of pity and partly because James was the only person who’s made any attempt to talk to Parker. That’s worth something. It’s worth a couple of bags of chips, at least.

Before James Allen McCune leaves, he grabs Parker’s wrist and squeezes. “I’ll remember this,” he says, and by the time Parker is done blinking in surprise, he’s gone.

  #

  Nobody speaks to Parker for four more days. He overhauls inventory a couple dozen more times, sneaks out the back once or twice to practice knife-throwing in the streets. He doesn’t let it bother him that he’s alone, because he did what he thought was right. He can hold onto that little kernel of integrity, even if everyone else hates him for it.

He’s thinking about leaving - abstractly, not actually leaving everything, but more seriously than he’d ever admit -  when the stockroom door opens. He doesn’t even have time to try and hide before Autumn walks in and fixes her eyes on him. “Hey.”

Parker blinks a couple times, hard - maybe this is just happening because he stopped sleeping again? - but at last manages to say, “Hey.”

Autumn holds up her copy of World War Z. “Finally finished it.”

“Wow,” Parker says, and instantly hates himself for it.

“Yeah, it was okay.” She looks around. “You… moved the books.”

“The books are…” Parker tries to remember. Shit. Maybe this system isn’t as intuitive as he thought. “By the emergency exit?”

Autumn wanders over there, looking around as she goes. “You’ve been busy.”

“I haven’t had a lot to do.”

“You could’ve talked to us.”

Parker opens his mouth and realizes he doesn’t know what to say to that, so he changes subjects. “Hey, you can hear me.”

“Yeah, I can.”

“That’s cool.”

“Yeah.” Autumn reappears with a couple of new books in hand. For a second Parker thinks she’s going to leave, but instead she leans against one of the shelves, looking down at him. “The hearing aids aren’t perfect, because they weren’t calibrated for me or anything, but Sami Jo and-- uh, Sami Jo was trying to figure out if we could do that.”

“That’s cool,” Parker says, and decides to act like he can’t guess that she was about to mention Cib, or that she decided to avoid mentioning Cib. “I’m glad they work.”

“Me too.” Autumn drums her fingers against the shelf. “Oh, and thanks.”

He blinks. “What?”

“For not letting Sami Jo go alone. I don’t care what anyone else says, it was stupid but it was right.” Autumn smiles. “I’m glad she had you with her.”

Parker looks at her. She seems to guess that he can’t figure out what to say, because she gets back to her feet. “I should go. Sami Jo wants to read to me now that I can hear her.”

“That’s… sickening.”

“Yeah,” Autumn says happily. “It’s pretty cool. And I’m gonna leave the door open.”

Parker looks at the stockroom door, which is already nerve-wrackingly wide open. “What if people don’t want to talk to me?”

“Then they won’t talk to you.”

“What if they never talk to me again?”

“Then you need better friends,” Autumn says with conviction. “Take a nap or something, Parker, you look like shit.”

That, Parker decides as she leaves, is probably a sign that she cares.

  #

  “Do you think I should leave?” Parker asks, despite all his better judgment.

Steve doesn’t even look at him. “Do you want to leave?”

“Not really.”

“Then don’t.”

“But what if-”

“Do you think we’ll be better off if you left us?”

“I don’t know, maybe?”

“Then sure, leave.”

Parker stares. “This isn’t helping.”

“I don’t know what you thought it was going to do.” Steve plucks a screwdriver off one of the shelves. “I like this new inventory system.”

“Thanks,” Parker says. “I was going to change it.”

“Of course you were.”

“No, not because of you, I’ve just been rotating the system a couple times every day.”

Steve turns and stares at him. “Jesus Christ, why? ”

Parker shrugs. It’s all he can think to do.

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. “Every day, every single day I wonder why out of all of the people I could be stuck with at the end of the world, I had to end up stuck with you.”

It’s a joke. Parker knows it’s a joke. It’s one Steve’s made before. He flinches anyways, because there’s a chance it’s not a joke anymore.

“Oh my god,” Steve says. “Why haven’t you talked to Cib?”

“He doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“I can’t talk to him if he’s always working on that computer thing.”

“You’ve talked to James.”

Parker has had two conversations with James in the last week. Neither of them were longer than three sentences. “How are we defining talking?”

“What the fuck kind of a question is that?”

“It’s an important one!”

“Every single day,” Steve repeats. “Like, constantly, just constantly I wonder if there is a God, and if there is, I wanna know what’s up with the zombies, and why you and I are both here.” He raises his eyebrows at the end, significantly, like he’s trying to make sure Parker understands that he’s not being serious.

Parker ducks his head, half out of acknowledgment and half because he really needs this conversation to be over. He’s a little bit out of practice with talking to people. “I don’t know why, either.”

“I didn’t think you did,” Steve says, and that’s supposed to be the end of it, he should walk away, but he’s not doing that. Instead he’s looking at Parker. “Hey.”

Parker looks up. Steve is staring down, eerily… non-malevolent. “Hey?”

“I’m glad you didn’t die.”

“Me too.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay, that’s what I expected.”

“No, I’m glad you didn’t die either, Steve,” Parker says. He tries to say it quietly so it doesn’t come out quite as earnest as he means it.

Steve gives him the smallest, most crooked smile. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.” Parker looks away, and this time, Steve does walk away. But Parker doesn’t mind.

  #

  There’s something going through the dumpster outside.

This is one of four thoughts that Parker is capable of having. The other three are I hope it doesn’t hurt to get turned into a zombie, and It’s three in the morning, and How bad would it really be if I just left? But no matter how far he gets down one of those trains of thought, every time there’s a shuffle and a bang outside, and he goes right back to that first one. There’s something going through the dumpster.

And, hell, it’s not like Parker can sleep anyways, so around the twenty-minute mark of dealing with either a wild animal or a zombie right outside the emergency exit, he grabs a pistol and gets to his feet. It’s probably not a good idea to open that door, in case it actually is a zombie and it gets inside, so he goes through the front door. Everyone’s asleep. Nobody stirs as Parker walks through, and opens the door, and steps into the chilly California air and-

“Fuckin’ seriously?”

Shit.

Parker turns around, trying to look as calm as he can. He’s pretty sure he fails. “Look, I swear-”

“Are you ditching us?” Cib demands, looking Parker up and down. Parker’s sure that he looks like shit. Cib kind of does too, but not any more than he normally does. Not like he’s been losing sleep over Parker or anything. “In the middle of the night?”

“I swear, I’m not, I’m just-”

“You didn’t even take supplies!”

“I’m not leaving!”

Cib’s eyes narrow. “So what do you call it when you open a door and walk out, bitch?”

“I call it trying to figure out what’s going through the dumpster behind the store.” Parker clutches his pistol tighter to his chest. “I can’t sleep with all the noise.”

Cib snorts. “Yeah, cause you’re a regular sleepy-time boy, aren’tcha?”

“Come on,” Parker pleads. “I swear, I’ll be back in five minutes, tops.”

“Uh, yeah, you will.” Cib pulls the door to the kitchen store shut and holds out a hand, wiggling his fingers. “Spork it over.”

“What?”

“The gun, dude, give me your gun.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t trust you,” Cib says, and something about how plainly he says it makes Parker hold out the gun. Cib takes it and shoves it into the waistband of his pants. “You said it was around the back?”

Parker nods mutely, and Cib pushes past him. “Let’s make sure it’s not a dragon.”

“A- a what?”

“Someone who breathes fire and shits in the street.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Everyone’s gotta deal with the world ending somehow.” Cib turns a corner, and Parker follows. “Some people smoke crack. Some people go on suicide missions and nearly kill their friends. Different strokes for different jokes, you know?”

He’s still mad. Parker doesn’t know why he’s so hurt by that. “Look, I-”

“Nah,” Cib says. “I don’t wanna look at you.”

“I don’t mean literally, just-”

“I’m not literate, and you don’t have to bring it up.”

“ Cib, ” Parker says, and Cib stops dead in front of him, thank god. “I swear, I’m sorry, I didn’t think about-”

“That’s my compass,” Cib says.

Parker stops. “What?”

“My compass.” Cib stoops down, picks something up, and turns to show Parker. “I found this bitch out a couple miles west. I gave it to you.”

“Oh,” Parker says. Shit, shit, shit. “Right.”

“How’s it out here, huh? Do you go on compass trips when the rest of us are sleeping?”

“I-”

“And don’t lie.”

Parker closes his eyes. “I gave it to famous actor James Allen McCune.”

Cib doesn’t say anything. Parker doesn’t open his eyes, because if he has to see Cib look at him like a failure one more time he’s going to leave, and he doesn’t think he wants to leave. “He stops by every now and again for supplies, and I knew him before everything went down, and he’s just… sad, okay? He’s a sad, lonely dude, and I couldn’t-”

Something slams into Parker’s shoulders. His eyes fly open as he stumbles back into the wall of the kitchen store. And it’s Cib, glaring at him, arms still out where he shoved Parker. He takes a step closer, still a few feet away, but it’s enough that Parker’s chest tightens. “You gave away our things.”

“Only things that we could afford to give up, I swear-”

“This isn’t a game, there’s nothing we can afford-”

“None of you even noticed!”

“Because we trusted you, ” Cib grits out, and Parker’s mouth snaps shut. “I thought you were good at this, you know that? It always seemed like you knew exactly how much of everything there was. But it was because you were lying, wasn’t it? You weren’t keeping track of supplies, you were trying to keep your lies straight.”

Behind Cib’s shoulder, towards the dumpster, something moves. Parker’s eyes follow it, almost subconsciously, and any excuse to look away from Cib is a good one.

“Hey!” Cib says sharply, and Parker’s eyes snap back to him. “Are you fucking listening to me?”

Parker swallows, trying to keep his throat from being so damn dry. “I th- I think James Allen McCune is back.”

Cib flicks his wrist and pitches the compass behind him. It looks like it hits James, and Parker winces in sympathy, but Cib doesn’t even turn around, just points at Parker. “Now, I’m glad as anyone Autumn can hear, because now she can hear herself well enough to watch her goddamn tone when she’s out on the streets, but you don’t get to put yourself in danger like that, do you understand? You wanna play hero, but there are no heroes in zombieland. There are people who live and people who die.”

Parker nods mutely. He wants to say something, anything, but he’s just stupidly glad that Cib is looking at him again.

Cib jabs his finger towards Parker’s chest. “And you don’t get to die on us,” he says with finality.

“Okay,” Parker whispers. It feels like his lungs are tying themselves in knots, and it’s hard to take a deep breath, but he tries anyways. He can still see James shambling towards them, out of the dark, keeping his head down. Maybe the compass hit him in the head. Parker feels a pang of sympathy, but he turns back to Cib, because Cib matters more in this moment. “Okay, I’m sorry, I’ll… I’ll do better.”

“Good,” Cib says, and Parker can see some of the tension drain out of his shoulders as he lowers his hand. “Look, man, I don’t want you to-”

He’s still talking. Parker knows he is, except time has slowed down too much for him to understand a single word that Cib is saying. James is finally close enough to see clearly, only a couple feet from Cib. He’s moving silently, which is impressive, considering the glaze in his eyes and the blood dripping from his mouth. He doesn’t look like a person or a famous actor anymore. He looks like a zombie. Like a pissed off zombie, trying to bite whatever just threw something at him, and Parker barely has time to realize that before James lunges forward.

And Parker’s an idiot. He’s an idiot, and maybe he wants to be a hero in zombieland after all, so he does what any hero would do. He flings himself forward as hard as he can and bowls Cib to the ground. And it would be fine, just fine, except he throws an arm up as he does it. Cib’s falling prone on the ground and Parker shouts “ No, ” and James Allen McCune’s teeth-

(From somewhere, far away, he remembers James, in the kitchen store, back when it looked like a kitchen store and not a camp, holding a butter knife, saying something like it’ll fuck you up, miming stabbing, like the knife is going to sink into someone’s chest, or throat, or-)

-sink into Parker’s forearm.

Parker screams.

It hurts. Jesus, it hurts so bad that he doesn’t want to look at it, because it’ll hurt worse if he sees what’s wrong. He hears a gunshot, and Cib yelling something, and then Cib saying, over and over, “Parker. Parker. Parker. ”

Parker opens his eyes. Cib is leaning over him, hands hovering like he wants to touch Parker. Like he’s not sure he can. “C-Cib?”

“Hey,” Cib says, a little manic. “Hey, don’t you worry, little boy, we’re gonna get you all fixed up lickety-shit, alright?”

“Cib, that- that was a zombie-”

“You just hold on tight, okay?”

“What happened to-” Parker lifts his head and wishes he hadn’t. He’s soaked with blood pouring out of his right arm, or maybe out of the missing chunk of his right arm. James is lying on the ground a few feet away. He swallows, bile rising in his throat. “Oh, god-”

“Hey!” Cib snaps his fingers a couple times. “You just stay with me, alright? This is Los Angeles, you can’t get killed by a zombie actor, everyone’s done it already, and I’m not gonna be friends with you if you die like a fucking copycat, okay?”

Parker stares at Cib. Cib’s looking back at him, strange and steady. It’s reassuring. Helps Parker catch his breath. “Okay?”

“Okay!” Cib jumps to his feet. “Now, I don’t want to rustle your jimmies here, or your fucked-up arm, but desperate limes and all, so-”

“Can you not call my arm fucked up?”

“Nah, dude, it’s a little fucked.” Cib bends down and lifts Parker up, jostling his arm in the process. Parker chomps down on his lip, hard, but he still whimpers. Cib’s face twists a little. “It’s gonna be bumpy, I’ll try to keep from… from hurting you.”

“I don’t wanna die like this,” Parker says, even though he’s pretty sure he’s about to die like this.

Cib starts walking, clutching Parker carefully to his chest. “How’re you planning on dying, carpark?”

I want us to be on real speaking terms when I die, Parker nearly says, but instead he shakes his head and pulls his arm closer to his chest. “Old age, probably.”

“Aw, you’re plenty old, don’t worry about it.”

“About dying? ”

“Yeah.” Parker’s probably hearing things, with the blood loss and all, but he could’ve sworn Cib’s voice cracked, there. “Don’t worry about it.”

Parker swallows. Maybe there’s a chance to make everything okay, make this whole thing hurt a little less. “Cib-”

“Cib!” someone else shouts. Parker cranes his neck, but it’s so, so hard to pick his head up, and he lets it roll back against Cib’s chest. “Parker!”

“Steve!” Cib yells, rumbling through his chest and into Parker’s head. “Over here!”

There are footsteps pounding on the pavement. “Cib, what- oh, fuck. ”

“Steve,” Cib says, and his voice definitely cracks this time. He sounds scared. “What do we do?”

“Put him down,” James orders, sounding brittle. “Did he get bit?”

“M’arm,” Parker mumbles. “Ow- Cib, ow- ”

“I told you it’d be bumpy,” Cib says as he lowers Parker to the ground. “Careful, easy - can you stretch your arm out?”

Parker stretches his arm out.

“Your injured arm,” Steve says. It would probably be bitingly mock-patient, under other circumstances. It just sounds scared.

“I don’t wanna move it.” Parker blinks up at Steve until he can focus. “You’re not wearing glasses.”

Steve huffs. “Yeah, I didn’t have time to grab them. I was kind of trying to figure out why people were screaming in the middle of the night.”

“He means you,” Cib whispers.

“Can you see?”

“I can see the blood,” Steve says, and then his face does this… wobbly, twisty thing, and Parker can’t look at it anymore, so he looks away. “Cib, what the fuck happened? ”

“There was a zombie in our dumpster. We, uh…” Cib clears his throat. “He pushed me out of the way.”

“He would’ve got your neck.” Parker tries to look over at Cib, but he can’t figure out which side Cib is on. “Cib, he would’ve-”

“I know,” Cib snaps. “I’m gonna move your arm, okay?”

“Okay.” Parker’s arm starts moving, and he gasps. “That hurts.”

“Dude, I don’t know what to tell you,” Steve says. “You got bit by a zombie, it’s gonna hurt.”

“Am I gonna be a zombie?”

Steven sighs. “Maybe.”

“You don’t have to lie to me, I know how zombies work.”

“James thinks that because it’s your arm, we might be able to…”

“To?”

“To save you,” Cib says quietly. Parker can tell where he is now: at Parker’s right side, leaning over him. “By cutting your arm off.”

Parker blinks until he can see clearly through all the dancing spots. Cib is staring down at him, eyes wide. Cib has nice eyes. “Do I need that?”

“Your arm?”

“Yeah, do I?”

“Depends. Do you jerk off right-handed?”

Parker wrinkles his nose. “That’s kind of an intimate question.”

“It’s only intimate if I’m hitting on you, otherwise it’s just bros being dudes, am I right?”

“Are you hitting on me?”

Cib goes still for a second before forcing the widest, fakest smile Parker has ever seen. “We can talk about that later, right?”

Later. Right. If Parker doesn’t die or turn into a zombie.

“Okay,” James says, and he’s back now. When Parker looks up, he’s clutching the axe with both hands. “Okay. Sami Jo and Autumn are getting the medical things ready, but we need a tourniquet or something.”

Cib immediately pulls his shirt off and starts messing with the hem. Parker forces himself to smile weakly. “You’re stripping? So you were hitting on me?”

“Aw, you know I have a thing for devastating injuries.” Cib rips part of the fabric. His hands are shaking, but his voice is steady. “I look down at those gaping wounds and I think, I’ve gotta put my dick in that.”

“Oh my god, this is my nightmare,” Steve says. “This is- you understand that this is everything I am afraid of happening, right?”

Cib flashes Steve a grin before leaning down to Parker’s injured arm. “This is gonna hurt, so get ready, carpark.”

“It’s not-” Parker immediately cuts off as Cib wraps the scrap fabric around his arm, tight. “Ah, Jesus, just kill me, it’d hurt less-”

“I got you this.” James holds out a wad of fabric. “To bite down on.”

Cib finishes tying off the tourniquet, takes the wad, and quirks an eyebrow at Parker. “Open wide.”

“Romantic,” Parker says, but opens his mouth obediently.

Cib leans over and carefully pushes the wad into his mouth. “You’re gonna be okay,” he says, almost conversationally.

Parker tries to answer, but Cib pushes the wad in further and smacks a loud, ostentatious kiss on Parker’s forehead. “Gonna be fine,” he whispers. Parker wishes he hadn’t. It’s less confident, the second time.

“Cib,” Steve says, and Cib gets to his feet, steps away. “James, are you doing it?”

Parker looks up at James. James swallows. “I mean, unless one of you guys want to-”

“Nope,” Steve says immediately. Cib doesn’t answer. He’s just staring at Parker. Parker tries to smile back, but between the blood loss and the earth-shaking fear, he’s not sure it’s encouraging.

“Okay,” James says. “Ready?”

Parker shakes his head. James lifts the axe and swings.

  #

  Having one arm is… different.

The first thing Parker does is teach himself to write left-handed and it’s excruciating. He can’t read what he writes half the time, but it’s the only thing he can do anymore. Autumn took over inventory while he was recovering, quietly and insistently and with Sami Jo standing next to her glaring daggers every time Parker so much as insinuated he wanted to help out. Everyone’s constantly out on supply runs. And Cib isn’t talking to him, again, but there’s no point in getting upset about that. Parker’s saving his energy for the things he can control. Like his handwriting.

His right arm ends above the elbow and it’s a shock every time he looks at it. He uses most of their painkillers and antibiotics in the first few days and he feels horribly, horribly guilty about it. They’re practically out of bandages by the time he’s lucid, three days later, and he tries apologizing. And none of them let him do it.

“Dude,” Autumn says, around the fourth time Parker starts babbling about supplies. “You know we’re all just… glad that it worked, right?”

Parker doesn’t think it worked. But then again, it’s been ten days, and he’s not going to look this gift horse in the mouth any sooner than he has to.

“I am too,” he says instead of any of that.

“I mean it, though.” Autumn sets down the gun that she’s cleaning. She’s been doing that a lot lately. Parker thinks she likes having something to do with her hands. “Like, we give you shit and whatever, but we’re actually happy you’re alive. Even if we only have eleven hands on deck instead of twelve.”

Parker swallows. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank us.”

“But-”

“You’re our friend,” Autumn says patiently. “Our actual friend, okay? We want you to be in one piece-” she pauses and winces. “Sorry, dude, I’m not good at this. I wanted Sami Jo to do this talk.”

“What talk?”

“The one where we tell you to stop feeling guilty for not dying.”

“I don’t feel guilty for not dying,” Parker lies. “I just-”

“Feel guilty for taking up our supplies, which you wouldn’t have done if you died?”

Parker cringes. “Autumn-”

“No, you know what?” She picks up the gun. “You’re alive, and if that’s a problem, then tough luck. Because it’s not a problem for the rest of us, got it?”

“Got it,” Parker says, and fixes his eyes back on his notebook so Autumn can’t see the tears welling up.

Everyone seems to be handling the whole situation differently, which sucks for Parker, because it means he has to handle everyone differently. It also means that every time someone says a word like “handle” or “handy” they give Parker weird, guilty looks, which definitely makes the adjustment harder.

So instead of dealing with any of that, he writes. He keeps a shitty diary, full of boring stories. Sami Jo judges his progress every so often by snatching his notebook out of his hands and declaring his handwriting to be on par with “kindergarten” or “eighth grade” or “hobo.”

“Hobos can have good handwriting too,” Parker points out, about two weeks post-amputation. “That’s not necessarily a judgment on their handwriting.”

“No, I meant your writing style, bozo.” Sami Jo plops down next to him on the floor. “You write like a drunk hobo.”

“What drunk hobo writing have you been reading?”

She snorts. “They’re not even the bad ones, it’s the sober ones who are a problem.”

“I still-”

“You use too many nouns.”

Parker frowns. “What?”

“Nouns,” Sami Jo repeats patiently, and plucks the pencil out of his hand. “Look at all the nouns you use, it’s too many.” She taps the pencil on a series of words, too quickly for Parker to catch them all, but she definitely points at “jumps” and “big.”

“Sami Jo, do you know what a noun is?”

She looks at him blankly. “I just pointed at all your nouns.”

“Right,” Parker says. “Cool.”

“Don’t be such an adjective, Parker.”

“I’m not- can you be an adjective?”

“That question is a lot to unpack,” she says, and sniggers.

Parker thinks, absently, that it’s kind of ridiculous that Autumn thought Sami Jo would be good at this. Or that any of them would ever be good at this kind of conversation. They don’t do serious emotions, any of them. They just make fun of each other.

Parker actually kind of misses being made fun of. Maybe it really is the end of the world.

“Should I try and be… a noun?” he hazards, and Sami Jo’s resulting smile is way, way brighter than he expected.

“Yeah,” she says. “You don’t have to be anything other than a person.”

Parker nods. “I can do that.”

“You already do, silly.” She shakes her head and pulls Parker’s notebook closer to her face. “We gotta edit this, though.”

“Go for it,” Parker says, and he’s surprised to realize that he actually can’t wait for what she has to say.

  #

  “Dude,” Andrew says.

Parker looks at him expectantly, but he doesn’t say anything else. He’s just staring at Parker’s… stump.

“Told you the axe would come in hand,” Jeremy says. “What happened, anyways?”

“Uh,” Parker says, “it’s a long story.”

“We’re gonna be here for a while.” Andrew lowers himself to the ground and sits cross-legged. “Come on.”

The thing is - and this is so, so stupid, and Parker knows it, but he can’t stop it - that he still hasn’t talked to Cib about it yet. Or about anything. He’s not even a hundred percent sure that Cib is still there, most days. It’s been sixteen days, and they haven’t talked. And Parker doesn’t want to tell this story without Cib.

“I mean,” he says haltingly, “it- I can’t- I definitely got bit, I can tell you that.”

“What?”

Jeremy actually takes off his sunglasses. “In the arm?”

“Yeah.”

“And chopping it off actually saved your life?”

Parker shrugs. “I mean, it’s been a couple weeks and I don’t really want to eat any brains yet, so… maybe?”

“Oh my god,” Andrew says. Parker missed Andrew a lot, it turns out. “But you’re - I mean, you’re up and walking around, obviously it’s okay.”

“Well, it’s been a tricky past few weeks,” Parker admits. “You don’t think about how much stuff you use both hands for until suddenly you don’t have both hands.”

Andrew looks down at both of his hands consideringly. Jeremy shakes his head. “You guys know you could’ve found us and asked for supplies, right?”

“I don’t know where you live these days.”

“Couple miles west of here. Not far off. We have painkillers and things. Do you still need them?”

“Nah.” It doesn’t hurt most days, and the days it does hurt, it’s all phantom pains. Nothing that he can do about it.

“Still,” Andrew says. “You could’ve.”

Parker nods. “I mean, hopefully we never have to ask you again, but we’ll ask next time.”

Andrew and Jeremy exchange a look that Parker can’t parse. After a few seconds, Andrew sighs. “We might not be there.”

“What?”

“We’re thinking about leaving,” Jeremy says. “Heading out east. Lots of people are.”

Parker frowns. “Why east?”

“Because if we go west we’re in the ocean,” Andrew says.

“And because we don’t want a cold winter in the north, and we think the south will smell like garbage with all the bodies,” Jeremy adds.

Parker shakes his head. “How are you getting there?”

“Walking, mostly.” Jeremy tilts his head. “Unless you-”

“We’re not trading the bikes.”

“Trading the bikes?” Steve repeats, coming out of the back room with a couple of cases of MREs. Parker’s not sure how many cases they have anymore, but he’s pretty sure they shouldn’t be giving that much food away. He doesn’t say anything. “Uh, that’s going to be a hard pass.”

“We don’t need the bikes,” Andrew says as Steve sets the cases down next to him. “We were thinking about driving, but you know how the roads have been lately.”

Steve frowns and looks at Parker, then Jeremy. “Driving where?”

“We’re aiming for Utah, but anything goes at this point.” Jeremy shrugs. “There’s nothing left out here for us, Steven, and we all know it.”

“There’s nothing left anywhere these days.”

“We won’t know until we look.”

“So you’re leaving?”

“Probably,” Andrew says. “In a couple weeks.”

“You guys could come with,” Jeremy says. “If you wanted. We could make room for you.”

Parker raises his eyebrows at Steve. He doesn’t necessarily trust Jeremy as a person, but he trusts Andrew, and he trusts that Jeremy wouldn’t let his traveling companions die. It’s not a bad deal.

“Pass,” Steve says. “But thank you for the batteries. We were running low.”

Andrew frowns. “You sure you don’t want to come?”

“We’ll let you know if that changes,” Steve says, in a tone that makes it clear that it’s not going to change. “Now get out of here, leave our hero alone.”

“Hero?” Jeremy repeats. “What’d Parker do?”

Steve frowns at Parker. “You didn’t tell them?”

“It wasn’t heroic-”

“You saved Cib’s life!”

“Yeah, but I-”

“Saved his life?” Andrew and Jeremy exchange another meaningful look. Jeremy looks back at Parker with an eyebrow quirked. “I bet Cib’s handling that great.”

Parker blinks. “What?”

“Hey,” Steve says warningly.

Andrew holds up his hands in surrender. Jeremy slides his sunglasses back on. Parker just looks at Steve.

“Get out,” Steve says.

Andrew obligingly gets to his feet, but not before reaching out to clap Parker on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re okay, man.”

Parker smiles at him. “You too.”

“Andrew,” Jeremy says quietly. He looks at Parker as Andrew lifts the cases of MREs. “Congrats on surviving, hero.”

“I’m-” he grimaces. “Thanks.”

“We’ll try and come by one more time before we leave,” Andrew says.

Steve nods. “We’ll see you then. And if not, good luck out east.”

“Good luck out west,” Jeremy answers, and the two of them leave.

“Steve,” Parker says before he can stop himself. “I’m not a hero.”

Steve makes a face at him. “I’m not here to argue that with you.”

“No, but I’m not.”

“You saved Cib’s life.”

“But-”

“From the way he tells it, you guys were actually fighting, and you still saved his life.” Steven raises his eyebrows significantly. “You gonna try and tell me that’s not heroic?”

“No,” Parker says desperately. “That’s being a good person.”

Steven sighs. “I’m only gonna say this once, so listen up, okay?”

“...okay?”

“You’re the worst person to have during a zombie apocalypse.”

“Steve, you’ve said that before.”

He shakes his head. “Let me finish. You’re the worst person here because you’re always gonna do the right thing, even if it’s stupid. You’re the kind of person who throws yourself in front of a zombie and goes out on dangerous midnight supply runs and make sure we take care of ourselves. You’re not built for this kind of a world, Parker, you’re too… good for it.”

Parker opens his mouth and then closes it again. He doesn’t think there’s a good answer to that.

Steve, for his part, just nods. “When I say you’re a hero, I’m not saying it because you do dumb shit, I’m saying it because you do dumb shit for the right reason. And because it makes you uncomfortable.”

“It makes me really uncomfortable,” Parker mumbles.

“Win-win,” Steve says. “You’re gonna be a good person, this is the price you have to pay.”

“I think I liked you better when you guys were being dicks to me.”

“We’ll be back there soon,” Steve promises. “Just give us time.”

“I will,” Parker says. He’ll give them as much time as he has left.

  #

  “We should throw a party,” Autumn says.

James looks at her sidelong. “Now?”

“Why not?”

“Do we have things for a party?” Parker asks. It always feels strange, not knowing inventory anymore.

Autumn nods. “We have a ton of that vodka left, still. And juice boxes.”

Sami Jo snorts loudly. “If we’re mixing vodka with kids’ juice, it really is the end of the world.”

“I want vodka,” Parker says. He actually wants whiskey, but beggars can’t be choosers, or whatever.

“Cool,” James says. “We can get it set up while we wait for Steve and Cib?”

Sami Jo jumps to her feet. “I’ll get the glasses.”

“I’ll get the drinks,” Autumn adds. Sami Jo offers an arm, and Autumn uses it to pull herself to her feet. “You guys wait here.”

James waves them off as they go and looks at Parker. “What flavor juice box do you think best goes with vodka?”

“Mixed berry,” Parker answers immediately.

“You drink that shit?”

“You don’t?”

James makes a face. “You know you’re the worst kind of person, right?”

“More for me,” Parker says smugly as the door swings open.

“Steve,” James yells, “tell Parker he’s disgusting.”

“Parker, whatever you did, you’re disgusting,” Steve answers. “Also, check out what we got.”

Parker turns and sees Cib holding, over his head, a guitar. “Is that thing playable?”

“Sure is!” Cib grins at Parker, like it hasn’t been three weeks since he and Parker had a legitimate conversation. “Got it all tuned up like a sandwich and this little lady is ready to rock and rumble.”

“Whoa, dude, why’s your guitar a lady?” James points at Cib accusingly. “Objectification!”

“That’s not what objectifying is,” Steve says exasperatedly.

“Also, it’s because ladies are cooler,” Sami Jo says as she emerges from the stockroom. “Hey, are we doing music with our booze?”

“Uh, are we doing booze with the music?” Cib grins. “Because that’s the right way to do music.”

“With booze?”

“With other people.”

“Yeah, jackass, because we were all going to leave the room when you started playing guitar.” James gestures at Cib. “C’mon, serenade us.”

“Play Wonderwall,” Autumn says, appearing with a bottle of vodka in each hand and a case of juice boxes tucked under one arm.

Cib clears his throat and strums the guitar. “I will not be playing Wonderwall, because I am an artist, and a savant, and-”

“Cib doesn’t know what Wonderwall is,” Steve says. “How’re we doing drinks?”

“I was thinking we can pour vodka, then add a juice box,” Sami Jo offers. “Keep it classy.”

“Flavor the booze, don’t booze the flavor.” Cib points the guitar at her. “Respect.” And then he starts playing something atmospheric, a little clumsy. Parker’s sure that going five months without a guitar made him rusty. It’d make anyone rusty.

Autumn sets the juice boxes on the floor. “Everyone grab your own.”

“Parker likes mixed berry,” James says loudly. “Everyone shame him.”

Steve and Sami Jo boo obligingly. Parker ignores them and grabs two berry juice boxes, because no matter what the rest of them say, he’s going to drink the shit out of this juice. And the vodka mixed with it.

Two or three drinks later, Cib is still playing guitar softly, sitting next to Parker in their makeshift circle. Autumn is half asleep on James’s shoulder, and Sami Jo has both her arms around Autumn’s waist.

“I love you guys,” Steve says, and topples over onto James’s other shoulder. “Don’t tell Parker.”

“Yikes,” Parker says.

Sami Jo giggles. “I wish we could leave,” she says wistfully. “Go somewhere… bigger.”

“We could,” Cib points out. “We’re running outta stuff, right?”

“Mmmmhm.” Autumn blinks sleepily. “Where would we go?”

“Dunno,” Sami Jo says. “I always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, though.”

“Basic,” Cib whispers.

“Yeah,” Sami Jo agrees happily. “It always seemed so… big, y’know? I think I used to want to feel small in the world.”

“Grand Canyon’s pretty,” Parker says. He hasn’t been in years and years, but he still remembers being in awe in front of it.

James loops an arm around Steve’s waist. “Well… why can’t we go?”

Cib stops playing. “You serious?”

“Yeah, dude.” James shrugs slightly, ignoring the way both Steve and Autumn whine at him. “Like, what else is there to do? Let’s go on a road trip.”

“We probably could,” Autumn muses. “If we found a car.”

“There are cars that still work.” Steve frowns. “Somewhere.”

“We can make them work,” James says. “Hey, guys, do you wanna go to the Grand Canyon?”

Sami Jo beams. Autumn lifts her head just enough to kiss Sami Jo’s temple. “Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” Sami Jo sighs. She tugs Autumn off of James’s shoulder until they’re both lying on the ground, her arms still around Autumn. “Love you, babe.”

“Love you too.”

“I’m so lonely,” Cib whispers, and goes back to strumming the guitar softly. There’s no real rhythm behind it, just chords. Something nice.

“Play us to sleep,” James commands, and Cib grins and keeps playing soft and steady.

It takes about fifteen minutes until everyone else is asleep. Parker blinks at Cib a couple times. Everything is still tinged and hazy with the vodka, but Cib is as clear as ever. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Cib stops playing abruptly. “I’m sorry.”

Parker sits up a little straighter, frowning. “Sorry?”

“About… your arm.” Cib grimaces and sets the guitar aside, doesn’t really look at Parker. “About trying to pick a fight.”

“You were mad.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Make excuses for me.” One of Cib’s hands curls into a fist. “I get it, you wanna be chums in a bucket or whatever, but you almost died.”

“But I didn’t.”

“But you could’ve. And I had you cornered against a fucking wall, and you-” he looks away. “I can’t even fucking look at you.”

“That’s not fair,” Parker says. He doesn’t mean to sound so hurt, but maybe he is hurt. Maybe he’s tired of Cib hurting him. “I’m here. I’m dealing with it. Why aren’t you?”

Cibs hands curl into fists. “It would’ve been my fault.”

“No, it would’ve been the zombie’s fault.”

“No,” Cib says, sharply enough that Parker freezes. Cib notices immediately and drags a hand down his face, curling even further away. “Shit, I’m sorry, you don’t… do loud noises, I should’ve noticed.”

Parker takes a deep breath. “First of all, I forgive you.” Cib snorts, and Parker frowns. “I’m serious. I don’t blame you, I blame the zombie, but this is my permission to quit blaming yourself.”

“Okay,” Cib says, and tips his head towards Parker. He still doesn’t meet Parker’s eyes, but Parker can at least see his face now, the weird wry smile on it. “What else?”

“What else is that we can’t fix the arm thing now. And it’s not that I don’t miss having two hands, but that already happened.” Parker reaches his amputated arm out. “But I miss talking to you, and we can fix that.”

Cib shakes his head. Parker tries not to frown at him again. “Dude, come on.”

“Maybe I was flirting,” Cib says abruptly.

Parker blinks. “What?”

Cib looks up at him, a challenge clear in his eyes. “Y’know, maybe I was hitting on you because I thought you were dying and I didn’t know how to deal with it because I’m a little bit in love with you. And maybe I was so angry about everything because I was scared, huh? What do you think about that?”

Parker takes a deep breath. “I think that’s an unhealthy way to express your feelings.”

“Well, yeah.”

“And I think it’s shitty that you didn’t give me a choice.”

Cib frowns. “Uh, you don’t pick my feelings for me, dipshit. I pick ‘em, and I like you.”

“Not what I meant,” Parker says patiently. “I mean that I want to talk about your feelings with you.”

“You don’t talk about your feelings with me.”

“I’m willing to try if you are.”

Cib blinks a couple times. “Okay, you gotta jog that by me one more time.”

“Okay,” Parker says. “I’m drunk. But, like, just a little bit.”

“Same here.”

“There was a lot of juice in that vodka.”

“I like the berry too.”

“Good,” Parker says, and scoots over until he’s sitting in next to Cib. “This is gonna be weird.”

“It’s already weird,” Cib mutters, but Parker can see how unsure he is, underneath. “What is?”

“I dunno.” Parker leans his head onto Cib’s shoulder. Cib’s arm slips around Parker’s waist, squeezing him tight. “We can talk about it in the morning.”

“Okay,” Cib says. Parker puts his good arm around Cib’s shoulders, and Cib grabs his wrist with his free hand. “What’re we doing now, carpark?”

“Why do you call me that?”

“Because you let me.”

Parker smiles. “I was thinking we could just… talk, or sleep, or something.”

“You probably need sleep.”

“I’ve been sleeping!”

“Mmmhm?” Parker can almost hear the raised eyebrow in Cib’s voice. “You gonna swear by that?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

Cib laughs, low and rumbling through Parker’s chest, and smacks a kiss on Parker’s forehead. It’s not any different from any other time he’s done it, only-

Only this time, Parker looks up at him, and Cib is looking back, with something like wonder in his eyes. He doesn’t move when Parker leans in, or when Parker brushes his lips against Cib’s, barely, carefully.

“In the morning,” Cib says after a second, like it’s being wrenched out of him. “It’s- god, I can’t believe you’re real, Parker, in the morning-”

“I’m real,” Parker says, and squeezes Cib’s hand to prove it. Cib squeezes back. “I’m right here.”

“And you’re never going anywhere,” Cib says, desperate and resolute, and kisses Parker’s forehead one more time.

(Parker doesn’t remember falling asleep. But he remembers waking up with Cib next to him, strumming the guitar, one of his feet pressed up against Parker’s arm. Steve and Autumn are both grinning at them like they know something, and they might, but all Parker knows is that he smiles up at Cib, as happy as he’s ever been. And Cib, bright and relieved, smiles back.)

  #

  James claps his hands together. “The first thing I want you to know is that this was my idea, but it’s also Cib’s fault. Okay?”

“Cib’s fault?” Parker repeats. “Why did Cib want you to take me out to a parking lot?”

“This’ll all make sense as soon as you say you understand that it’s Cib’s fault.”

“Everything is Cib’s fault, isn’t it?”

“Good point.” James holds out a revolver. “This is yours. Welcome to target practice.”

Parker stares at him even as he takes it. “What?”

“See that car’s windshield?” He points across the parking lot. There’s a car at the other end, one that’s been rusting outside the kitchen store for the past five months. “You’re gonna shoot through it.”

“But-”

James moves so he’s standing behind Parker and guides his left arm up so he’s pointing his revolver at the windshield. “Hold it steady.”

“I could barely do this with two hands,” Parker says, bordering on desperate. “James, I don’t-”

“Just do it. I’m gonna hold it and help with the recoil, okay?”

Parker hates guns. He hated guns before he had to use them and he hates them more now that they’re a part of his daily life. James was best with them, always had been, but Parker’s not comfortable with them. He hopes he never is.

“Shoot,” James says, and Parker swallows and does. The shot goes wide, hitting a couple of yards to the left of the car. “Again.”

“James, this-”

“Parker!” he shouts. Parker flinches so violently that he almost falls over. James catches him with a hand on his shoulder, looking guilty. “Sorry, dude.”

“Why is this such a big deal?” Parker demands. His ears are ringing, and he thinks it’s from more than just the noise of the shot. “Why are you doing this?”

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll explain once you hit the windshield three times.”

“Three times?”

“Hold the gun sideways.” James positions himself behind Parker again and rotates Parker’s wrist. “Try that.”

Parker takes a deep breath and aims at the windshield. James squeezes his wrist encouragingly. Parker closes his eyes, remembers he’s trying to shoot a gun, opens his eyes, and squeezes the trigger. The bullet cracks through the windshield.

“Good,” James says. He moves so he’s gripping Parker’s shoulders. “Go again.”

Parker sighs, but he takes aim and shoots again. And it hits again. The force of the gun nearly sends him stumbling back, but James keeps him upright. “Okay. One more?”

“One more.” James lifts his hands, but Parker can still feel him there, hovering. “Go.”

“James-”

“Swear, dude.” James pokes him in the back, which might be his way of expressing solidarity. He also might just be an asshole. “One more.”

Parker grimaces, but he points the gun at the windshield and squeezes the trigger. This time the windshield shatters, glass falling all inside the car, and Parker immediately spins around to face James. “What are you doing?”

“Teaching you to shoot one-handed,” James says, unbothered.

“But why? And what does Cib have to do with this?”

“Glisten.” James reaches and takes the revolver away from Parker. “You gotta be able to defend yourself, dude. Especially if we really go road tripping, because weird things happen on road trips. But it’s different shooting with one arm, right?”

“Of course,” Parker says. The balance is different, the recoil is different, and he probably hates it even more than he did with two arms. “And the gun’s different.”

“Yeah, we’re practicing reloading next.”

“James-”

“My point is,” James says, “if you don’t think every one of us was really freaked out when you almost died, you’re not paying attention, dude. Sami Jo said that she’d never seen that much blood when she wasn’t on her period, and I think she might’ve been serious.”

“Dude,” Parker says, because he’s really not sure what else to say to that.

James nods seriously. “I know, I didn’t want to think about it either. But then you went and I had to cut your arm off, and I think that was almost as bad as me as it was for you.”

“Disagreed.”

“I said almost. Anyways, point is, you gotta be able to defend yourself.” James holds up the revolver. “We’re gonna practice with this, because you need to know how to shoot things. All of us do, but you’ve gotta learn something new before we get out of here. Because the southwest was kind of a shitstorm before there were zombies everywhere, and Cib’s gonna be actually pissed if you die.”

“Yeah, also, what part of this was Cib’s fault?”

“Uh, all of it? Didn’t we say everything is his fault?”

Parker shakes his head. “No, at the beginning, you said that it was your idea but it was Cib’s fault. What part of it?”

“Ahhhh.” James smiles, and it’s a weird kind of smile, like he knows something Parker doesn’t. “He was the one who said you needed a different gun.”

“So it was his idea?”

The smile vanishes immediately. “No, dude, I told you it was my idea! Inspired by Cib!”

“No, I know, it just sounds like-”

“Are you accusing me of fucking stealing? ”

Parker holds his arms up in surrender. “No, no, I just wanted to clarify! When did you guys have time to talk about this anyways?”

“What do you mean now?”

“I mean I don’t think you guys have been in the same room in like a week because of supply runs!” And it’s true: with everyone gearing up to go to the Grand Canyon, Parker and Autumn have been by themselves most nights for the last two weeks. It’s been almost uncomfortably empty, and hard to communicate, even with the walkie talkies that James found a while ago.

James snorts. “Haven’t seen him in like a week. That’s cute. He was talking about this last month.”

“Oh,” Parker says, and something warm unfurls inside his chest. Last month, when Parker was feeling useless with only one arm, Cib was trying to figure out how to help him. “Okay.”

“Good,” James says. “Now, are we gonna find more shit to shoot, or are we gonna just keep shooting the shit?”

“Are we- what?”

“Let’s shoot things, come on.”

“Do we have to?”

“Cib’s gonna kill me if you die, and I’m too young to die from anything other than zombies or exposure.”

“Isn’t dying by zombies dying by exposure?”

James holds out the revolver. “Shut up and shoot out that car’s tires.”

Parker smiles despite himself, takes the gun, takes a deep breath, and takes aim.

  #

  Steve, in the driver’s seat of the shittiest, shadiest Jeep that’s left in their entire broken world, slams the car horn. “Get in, come on, today’s the day!”

“I could’ve found a better car,” Cib yells back, but he turns and looks at everyone. “We ready to go?”

“Let’s do it!” Sami Jo leans down and kisses Autumn before running out, carrying half a dozen cans of gasoline. Autumn follows her, arms full of MREs, and James trails behind with what he called a survival kit. Parker’s pretty sure that it’s just a flashlight and a map, but he’s not going to rain on James’s parade.

Cib bumps his shoulder against Parker’s. “Ready to say goodbye?”

“To the place where I lost my arm? Absolutely.” But Parker turns and looks at the store and his breath catches. He already left the stockroom earlier, but now he’s leaving the store. The place he called home for nearly six months, where he and his best friends figured out how to survive. “Oh, my god, you never finished what you were doing with the computer.”

“The computer?” Cib laughs. “Naw, dude, I was just fucking with that. I was never doing anything.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“You amaze me,” Parker says, and he means every syllable of it.

Cib’s eyes go soft. He hooks a hand around Parker’s head, and Parker leans in and kisses him. He thinks he could stay all day, just like this.

“Hey!” Steven honks the car horn. “Get all that out of your system now, because there will be no banging in my new car.”

“We’re gonna fuck in the trunk while you’re driving,” Cib shouts back. “Fuckin’ bangarang all night long!”

“Or all day,” Parker mumbles before he can help it. It’s too quiet for Steve to hear, but Cib laughs, and that’s worth it.

“Not if we do it first!” Sami Jo yells. Steve drags a hand down his face. Autumn shakes her head.

“Get your asses in the car,” James yells. “We will leave you behind with a shell of a home and no supplies!”

“We have all the guns, bitch!” Cib lifts the box that they’re storing the guns in. “We can eat those!”

“We can’t eat those,” Parker whispers.

Cib grins. “Aw, don’t worry, babydoll, we’d find other things to eat.”

“Is that a sex thing?”

“Mmmmmmaybe.” He winks, twice with one eye and then once with the other. Parker is, despite all logic, a little charmed.

“Get in the goddamn car,” Autumn yells, and Cib bumps his hip against Parker’s and goes to the car. Parker takes one last look at the kitchen store, pushes down the swell of unspeakable emotions that threatens to rise up, and follows him.

It takes fifteen minutes and a lot of yelling to fit all the supplies in, but they manage it. Cib calls immediate dibs on the backseat, which means Parker also gets the backseat. “For leg room,” Cib explains, and slings one of his legs over Parker’s.

Steven glances in the rearview mirror. “Everyone got your seatbelts on?”

Cib groans. “We all got seashells, Steve, let’s get this fucking show on the highway!”

“Grand Canyon!” Sami Jo bounces excitedly, and Autumn smiles, fondly and full of love. “Let’s go, come on, come on!”

James unfurls a massive paper map. “Okay, I gotta find where we are, hold on.”

“I’m just gonna follow signs that say south and east,” Steven announces. “Until you can figure out something better.”

“No, that seems like a pretty safe bet,” James says, and looks back. “We all ready?”

“Ready,” Parker says. “Can I pick the music?”

Everyone groans. Cib sits bolt upright. “The guitar-”

“I put it in the trunk while you were throwing rocks at Alfredo,” Parker says.

Cib’s face lights up. “You’re the best.”

“Do not encourage him,” Steve says sharply. “Parker, you don’t get to pick the music, because we don’t have any music to pick from. Understand?”

“Understood.”

“Good. James, we good?”

“We good,” James says. “We good?”

“We good,” Cib answers, and he grins at Parker. Parker grins back, and Cib points at Steve. “Let’s get this bitch rolling.”

Steve pulls out of the parking lot. Parker closes his eyes and breathes.

[purkinje-effect]

The Purkinje Effect, 15

Table of Contents

“God, Geek, you’ve got a curse with timing, you know that?” Hancock leaned hard into the back of the couch and rubbed his temples with one hand, the other on a wine bottle. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see ya, but it’s been chaos since the moment I sent you off on your little errand. ...Speaking of which, how did all that go? You’re certainly back faster’n I expected. Hope that doesn’t mean you’re comin’ back empty handed.”

“Besides the walk to and back, it really didn’t take much,” Galen replied quietly, sitting on the couch beside him. “I didn’t have to find them. They found me. ...Where’s your bodyguard?”

“You missed a goddamn shit show.” The colonially dressed ghoul slammed back a third of the bottle and grunted once he’d taken a breath. “Hopefully it’s all blown over finally. Fahr’s alive, if only barely. She’ll be fine.” When Galen looked on expectantly, Hancock offered the bottle, but Galen waved it off.

“I, no, that’s not it. I just. I’m worried what happened, is all. Did Goodneighbor get attacked by raiders or something?” He settled in a little better, setting his duffel on the ground under his feet.

“Before you, last time I saw a vault dweller was over a year ago. And now two have blown through here in a single week. That little shit... You know, I don’t blame him, to be fair. I feel completely accountable for everything that happened. No, y’know what? Y'want story time? I’ll tell you what happened, but first things first. I’m payin’ ya for the scoop on North End.”

Galen nodded, lips tight.

“They’re legit, the Railroad. The Institute crafts synths to use them for slaves, and the Railroad is like, well. You know your history, yeah? I’d imagine somebody wearin’ John Hancock’s getup would know a thing or two about prewar stuff. Pretty sure they call themselves that after the Underground Railroad. They’re all about smuggling escapees outta the Institute and gettin’ ‘em someplace safe. Away from the Institute, and away from the bigots who think that because synths were created to serve some supervillain empire, that the synths themselves are evil by design. Y’know, I will take y’up on that.”

He motioned for the bottle, and the mayor shared. After a solid swig, the dreg passed it back to him.

“I said they found me?” Galen kept on. “Apparently I’m not just a sore thumb stickin’ out sideways around here, I’ve got a goddamn spotlight on me. They had their eye on me since I got outta Diamond City. And... they want me to sign on with ‘em. I kinda want to. Nobody, no thing, deserves t’be enslaved. That’s a cause I can get behind. They know you sent me to scout ‘em out, and they sent me back with reassurance they have no intention of embroilin’ you, your town, or its people, in their dirty work. Not without ‘em also signin’ on, provin’ they’re on board black-n’-white about it all. No innocent blood shed on their watch, an’ all that.”

“Respectable work they’re doin'.” Finishing off the bottle, Hancock put it down on the coffee table with an elevated brow and heavy lids. He reached for his cigarette case and lit one up, flicking the extinguished match into the ashtray. “Y’say y’wanna join ‘em? What’s stoppin’ ya?”

Any ease left in Galen’s face drained right out of him.

“I came East lookin’ for answers about what might be wrong with the equipment at my vault. Bein’ pink ain’t rosy. My time up top just keeps rackin’ up red flags over symptoms an’ details we all just sorta accepted as normal. Time got to be a blur, and all we knew was what we were experiencing. I’m sure for most of us, it’s been like this so long we’ve forgotten it wasn’t always like this. Anyway, I’m outta places I’d know where to look for information, but really I’ve all but given up anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I care what happens to ‘em, but I’m positive they’d cut their noses off just t’spite me at this point, even if I had a way to fix all this.” After a moment the turn of phrase had marinated, and he straightened. “Bad choice of words.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Hancock murmured, grinning genuinely a moment. “You’re really pulled every which way, aren’t ya?”

“It sounds horrible, but I’m just lookin’ for a way for me t’survive this... I wanna be in the pink, not just... Yeah. Can I bum a smoke off ya, in exchange for playin’ y’couch psychiatrist?”

“--Sure.” Picking up the case again, Hancock produced a second cigarette and lit it off the cherry of his own, then he handed it over. As he spoke, he gesticulated with his cigarette not unlike an implement. “This classy lil’ tricorner hat’s gettin’ kinda heavy, man. That other vaultie I mentioned? Showed up a few hours after you left. Scrawny little creep with a Handy. Jamjar glasses and a bad limp. Finn, one of my best guards, decides to get friendly with the guy in the worst way, just because Finn doesn’t like how I’m running things and was tryin’ t’put his foot down wherever he could stomp it. Finn an’ I get into a disagreement, and I had to put him in the dirt over it to protect the guy.

“I thought I had a bead on everybody in my town, knew where I stood. Have I become a tyrant? Finn wasn’t the only one who’s actin’ like it.” Hancock shut his eyes, took a long drag off his cigarette, and paused on his head space, holding the smoke in for a moment before letting it out his nose-less nostrils. His head lolled onto the back of the couch, his hand drooping off the arm of it. “That little shit wasn’t even in my town a full twenty-four hours before another of my folks had him tricked into helpin’ her breakin’ into my strong room. All hell broke loose. There was... collateral. Fahr was just doin’ her job, and it almost got her killed. Vaultie’s got some serious debt racked up, if he can’t get back the shit he helped Bobbi steal from me. And something along the lines of a fine for critically wounding my second-in-command.”

A short silence followed.

“I get that you’re pissed,” Galen started, puffing away as he leaned forward onto his knees. “But didn’t you just describe that other vaultie as a scrawny, decrepit nerd? If he had the wool pulled over him by this Bobbi, you really think he’d be capable of coercin’ her t'cough it back up?”

“Oh, it ain’t about him makin’ recompense. It’s about makin’ him sweat. If he can get that loot back from her, he’s earned it. But what’s got me is, Bobbi thinks I earned her makin’ me for a mark. I had a job done on me. I’m getting too hunkered into my laurels. I’m goin’ crazy inside my head. I’ve gotta. I’ve gotta get outta town. Blow off some steam, sharpen the ol’ killer instinct.”

“...Funny thing, that timing. I finished the part of the story you asked me to fish for, but there’s one more thing. In order to join on the Railroad, I have to do a job for them. Prove my aptitude or somethin’ like that. An’ I’m kinda wary to go alone. The guy I’ve gotta meet with is the one I think’s been tailing me the past week, and he’s kinda... weird.” He squinted and shook his head, and swallowed his filter without snuffing it. With his head collected, he made eye contact with the mayor. “You wanna get outta town. I gotta get outta town. I’d love it if y’came with me.”

Hancock shot up and slapped his knees, then stood animatedly. His face lit up, and he wagged his free hand at Galen while he finished off his cigarette.

“You. I knew I liked you. It’s settled. We stock up and head out ASAP. I gotta bow to the formality of a speech before all that, though. I owe my people that much. But they can hold their own while I duck off with ya. They’ve got Fahr, once she’s a hundred percent again. This little job shouldn’t take too long, should it?”

“It’s out by the old Corvega plant,” Galen replied. The mayor’s intensity was catching, and a strange smile crossed the pink dreg’s face. “You’re good people, Hancock.”

“By the smile of Heaven, I am a free and independent man,” he grinned, tipping his hat toward him over his shoulder as he ducked out the balcony door at the end of the room.

[saibh29]

Fix This

Pairings: Vane / Reader

Warnings: Swearing (A LOT), Violence, 

Request:  @fear-of-the-guardians Hello! I hope I’m doing it right?? Never requested something but I love your writing. Maybe Vane finally ready to move on from Eleanor after Charlestown. But the girl/reader doesn’t want him at first because he left her for Eleanor once. But Charles now realized that she was the one?🤗 She’s strong and was a pirate under Ned Lows command before Charles killed him, she wanted revenge but Charles awakes her feelings again.

As a side note do people on my everything tag list want to be tagged in things other than THE 100 imagines? 

@angelaiswriting @selldraug @thenovarose @mindofthescattered @georgiagrl1990

Rackham slipped into the seat opposite your own a fake smile plastered onto his face as he tried to hide the grimace at the large line of empty glasses in front of you.

“Yes?”

“Nice to see you as well Y/N” he peered over the edge of the current glass you were nursing. “It seems your mug is empty, allow me to rectify that” waving his hand he flagged down the wench serving and grabbed another two mugs of ale pushing it over to you.

“What do you want Rackham?” you snarled, not at all in the mood for his games and flowery words. You’d come in to get pissed, a goal you had been well on the way to achieving before Rackham sat his ass down opposite you.

“Nothing my flower, not a thing. This pleasant little interlude it entirely about what I can do for you”

Sighing loudly you took a large gulp from the mug he’d gotten you. “Fine, what can you do for me?”

“Our mutual… acquaintance is looking to have a chat”

“I don’t want to talk to your fucking shit of a captain Rackham” you drained the remaining contents of the mug slamming it down onto the table. Narrowing your eyes at him. “Tell him to stuff whatever fucked up offer he has right up his arse and crawl back to that whore Guthrie”

“Such language from one so fair”

“Rackham I am running out of patience for you” his eyes widened comically and you took a firmer grasp on your rapidly thinning temper. “You need to back the fuck off and leave me alone”

“Y/N…”

It took seconds for you to prove to him that you weren’t anywhere near as drunk as he’d thought. Pushing the bench back from underneath you with a screech of wood against alcohol sodden tiles. You reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt taking a large chunk of it in your hold as you yanked him over the table. Rackham grunted in surprise as his chest slid along the table. You let go of his shirt to take hold of both shoulders spinning him over so he was on his back, staring up at you. A knife slid out of your shirt sleeve long and sharp and pressed against Rackham’s neck.

“What part of fuck off did you mishear Rackham?”

Rackham didn’t answer, mainly due to the pressure on his neck from you knife. The other patrons in the tavern too used to violence in their daily lives had barely blinked at your little skirmish with Rackham. Instead muttering about women and knives before going back to their own drinks.

“Y/N?”

“Great, just great” you muttered using your spare hand to pick up Rackham’s earlier untouched mug of ale. “Going to take this Rackham”

“By all means” he gasped out even managing a small smile as you downed the contents in his mug. The ale wasn’t good at the taverns but a person soon learnt to ignore the taste of it in trade off for the numbing effects on one’s mind. In this case you were really hoping that with one more mug of ale the owner of that gruff sounding voice behind you would vanish by the time you turned around.

Finally removing your knife from Rackham’s neck you turned around. The ale hadn’t worked that much was obvious very quickly because Captain Vane was stood there hands on his hips staring down at you.

“Vane” sliding the knife back into the sheath on your forearm you crossed your arms over your chest staring at him. “Sending people to butter me up first are you now?”

“If I did it clearly wasn’t working”

“Clearly”

Rackham had gotten up as well brushing crumbs and assorted dirt from his clothing before rubbing a hand over his throat. He cocked his head towards you “Y/N always a pleasure”

“Fuck off Jack” Vane echoed your sentiments from before as a plainly annoyed Rackham did indeed leave you both alone.

Vane’s eyes returned to you as he stared apparently not wanting to be the one who spoke first. In the game you both played of constantly trying to win over the other it seemed the most recent stakes were breaking and talking first.

In the end neither of you spoke because Vane reached out grabbed your wrist and dragged you from the taverns main room. At your show of violence the patrons had barely reacted whereas when Vane had grabbed you and you’d started shouting and thrashing they suddenly couldn’t have been busier. Refusing to look at either of you and definitely not willing to break Vane’s grip on you or get in his path.

Vane kicked open doors along the taverns corridor interrupting whores doing business, merchants snoring and thieves sneaking towards bountiful loots. Finally finding an empty room he shoved you into it boarding the door behind him to stop you escaping once again.

Practically spitting with rage you slipped the knife back out of your sleeve fingering the blade, Vane’s eyebrows rose as he noticed the weapon but he didn’t move or look slightly threatened.

“Going to stab me Y/N?”

“I should, you fucking murdered my captain for that whore Vane”

“Lowe deserved what he got” he waved away your words, unconcerned with the allegations of murder. After all it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been accused of murder. “You however are a different story all together”

“Meaning what?”

“You joined that fuck wits crew Y/N, when you knew my relationship with him”

“Why exactly should I give a fuck what you wanted from me Vane?” your voice had gotten louder and louder until the point where you were screaming. “You left me remember. Decided that screwing Eleanor Guthrie would be a better option”

“I was wrong”

Well that took all the metaphorical wind right from your sails. You had known Charles Vane for close to 10 years, ever since he’d dragged your skinny teenage ass from the sea of a wrecked British Merchant ship. Never once in the whole of those 10 years had you heard him say he was wrong or even allude to the possibility that he could be.

“You were wrong?” repeating the words even sounded strange.

He was scowling but nodding in agreement. “You were right about Eleanor, always had been” he took a step towards you in the room, starting to box you into a corner with his body.

“So now what?” snarling you held the knife up stopping his movements towards you. “You thought you’d come and claim your consolation prize? Fuck you Vane”

He took another step towards you reaching for your arms. Not at all willing to just let him take you once more you flailed out with the knife in your hand catching his forearm and cutting a deep slice. Growling Vane took hold of your wrist twisting making you let go of the knife with a cry of pain. His other arm came around your waist pinning your arm to your side as he dragged your back into his chest.

“Fucking crazy woman, stay still”

“No” hissing like a feral cat you struggled in his grasp, stamping down hard on the top of his foot with your boot.

He grunted and shifted you in his arms once more lifting so you were actually off the ground effectively neutralising your feet as a weapon against him.

“Listen to me Y/N, it’s not Eleanor that I killed Lowe for”

“Of course you did” his muscles were straining around you as you still fought to get free of his grip. “You left a bloody sign in the square Vane with his head. Who else had Lowe angered than that bitch Guthrie”

“I did not kill him for Eleanor” he repeated somehow managing to spin you around in his grip so your chests were pressed together, with your feet still lifted off the floor it put your face on the exact level of his own. “I killed him for you?”

“What?” shock had you finally stopping your attempts at escape. “How in the world do you figure that killing Lowe was helping me?”

“If I put you down will you listen?”

“Fine” He did put you back down on your feet taking a moment to look down at his arm. The cut you’d managed to inflict on him was still bleeding. “Sit down” you ordered “I’ll clean it and you can tell me how your tiny little brain came up with this newest conclusion”

He ignored your insult too used to them to care instead hooking a foot around a stool he sat near the bed. You perched on the end of it reaching out to take his arm and using the only clean water in the room to start bathing the cut.

“Rackham was the one who heard it, Lowe and his men discussing what they were going to do to you”

“Fucking Rackham, he’s about as trustworthy as a snake”

“He was right Y/N. Anne was there too”

“Fine, just what were they apparently going to do to me?”

“I’m not spelling it out” Vane caught your wrist in his own stopping what you were doing. “Safe to say the bastard got what he deserved”

“So I’m meant to believe that you killed Lowe to protect my honour?” He grunted and you shook your head. “Well fuck you Vane, I don’t need you to protect me, never did”

He lurched back to his feet pushing the stool backwards with his boot heel so it slammed into the wall. “You are a stubborn bitch. Can’t fucking win can I? Can’t protect you and can’t ignore you, can’t love you but can’t be away from you so tell me Y/N what the fuck do you want?”

“From you?” he nodded “Nothing” you snarled getting back up to your feet as well. “You broke me Vane. When you made off with Eleanor you broke the only bit of my humanity left. You can’t fix it just by telling me you were wrong”

“Then what?”

You sighed anger fading away with the outgoing breath, after a pause you shrugged your shoulders. “I don’t know. I don’t know if you can”

Very slowly Vane lifted his hands placing them on your face, using his thumbs to gently run along your cheekbones. “I’m going to fix it” he swore gravel in his voice as he refused to break eye contact with you. “No matter what it takes or how long it takes I am going to fix this. At least let me try?”

“Alright” his eye brightened at your words. “Alright you can try. I’m making no promises though Vane”

Leaning down he pressed a kiss on your forehead. “Don’t worry I have ample confidence in my abilities. Got you once can do it again”

“Cocky bastard” you muttered as smirking he let go of you moving away once again.

He left you alone stood in the room wondering how you had ended up back here again, hanging around waiting for Charles Vane. Wondering how that feeling was back in your stomach, the one where you couldn’t wait for him to come back. He would win you back, you knew that for sure. Smiling to yourself though you went and picked up your knife from the floor putting it back in its sheath once more. Knowing he would eventually win you back though gave you ample opportunity to make him work very fucking hard for it. Very hard.

[dont-doubt-dopple]

How You Fell In Love With Me - Chapter 1

A/N: So, my brain came up with another idea. Thanks creative brain. Anyways, just as a heads up a lot of stuff is going to repeat. I’m not going to write all of the novel within this fic; that’s a little too much work. But the italics is Bryce’s book, while the normal is dialogue between characters in the real world. Sorry if it gets confusing.

~•~

Chapter 1: Peeking Interest

Bryce was glad he found a blanket. It probably wasn’t as fuzzy as it used to be and there was obvious evidence that a dog had gotten to it, hence why it was in the trash. However, it stood looked long enough to cover the entirety of the 20-something’s 6'3" body. Though the thought of whether he’d use it for cover or warmth lingered in the back of his mind. He would think about it later. Right now, he simply crossed his fingers that there was another blanket in the other dumpster. He was not expecting to find a person.

“This sounds like a cliché superhero plot line.” Mike commented, lowering his physical copy of the draft. Bryce sighed, closing his eyes flopping back onto his bed. The blond ran his hand through his hair as he opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. “Well I’m sorry if I couldn’t think of anything better.” He snapped back. “That doesn’t mean you should go stealing the plot of Daredevil Season 1 Episode 2.” Bryce breathed, trying to calm himself. He needed criticism, and Mike was the only person he was confident enough to tell about his self insert gang story, How You Fell In Love With Me. “Beginnings are hard.” He complained. “Any creator will tell you that. You have to introduce the main characters, establish setting, possibly introduce the conflict, all while making sure you hook the reader into reading the rest.” “I still think you should start another way. If I could spot the comparison, so could other readers.” “Well, what do you suggest?” Mike hummed, glancing over the draft. “Can I hear it in first person? Maybe just the first part before you edit the whole thing.” Bryce didn’t know what that do, but he quickly edited the pronouns and a few words to fit the narrative. I was glad I had found a blanket. It probably wasn’t as fuzzy as it used to be and there was obvious evidence that a dog had gotten to it, hence why it was in the trash. However, it stood looked long enough to cover the entirety of my lengthy 6'3" body. Though the thought of whether I could use it for cover or warmth lingered in the back of my mind. Though, I had to think about it later. Right now, I am simply crossed my fingers that there is another blanket in the other dumpster. Granted, I was not expecting to find a person. “See?” Mike offered. “That sounds better.” “It does, doesn’t it?” Bryce wondered aloud. “I think I can rework this chapter with this point of view. Thanks Mike for being my beta.” “No problem.” He replied. “Happy to work with you anytime, man. Your writing is amazing. Maybe you should link me to the Google Docs so I can comment and edit.” “Okay, yeah. Sounds good.” Bryce nodded, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “Just … you mind if I roll my new intro by you?” “Not at all.” Mike waved. “Hit me.” The silence was deafening. I expected it to be quieter after what happened yesterday, but not so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Usually when I came home, or however much the abandoned theater could be called a ‘home’, from a supply run it would be the same old enjoyable routine. Gorilla and Swag would be in the corner playing the Friday the 13 for an old NES console we found one day. Smitty, Kryoz, and Panda would be on the opposite side joking around with a Cards Against Humanity packone of them had, trying to figure out the best combinations. Most days I watched Gorilla and Drac, but now the bags of loot were simply taken from my hands and Smitty placed his finger to his lips. 'Drug Deal.’ He mouthed. 'On Stage.’ “Holy Crap, this is good.” Jonathan muttered, glancing over Evan’s shoulder as their eyes flew over the pages. “I wish there was more.” “Of what?” Ryan asked as he scooted into the seat across from the pair. “What’s that?” “This,” Evan indicated, waving the pages in the air next to him. “, is amazing. Somebody must have it here on accident.” “Yeah, but what is it?” Ryan pushed, leaning more into the table. “A draft of a story someone here is writing.” Jon explained. “It’s only the first chapter though, and it’s fantastic.” Jonathan put more emphasis on the last word, hoping that someone would claim ownership. He only received a few pointed glares that told him he should be quiet. “I can see why someone didn’t want people to read it though.” Evan added, making him receive a raised eyebrow from Ryan and a questioning look from Jon. “I mean, the author is clearly not trying to hide the fact that these characters are people on campus.” “Can I see?” Ryan asked, and Evan handed him the copy. He glanced through the pages, searching through for characters. “Wow. The first paragraph alone has Mark, Lucas, John, one of the Anthonys, and Dracula.” “Yeah, and it doesn’t end there.” Evan replied, pulling the draft back from his friend. “Listen to when they describe the guys in the deal. Right … here!” There were six of them, three to one side and three one the other. There was practically an invisible line between the groups that nobody was crossing. To stage left held the more normal looking guys. The most noticeable feature was the Mario hat one of them wore. Another had a beard, while the last one looked much older. While the others on the left looked like late 20-somethings or early 30-somethings, the last one looked like old enough to be a seasoned vet from Vietnam. They all had polished suits on, while the one with the beard held a briefcase which I assumed had the goods. The people on the right stood out a lot more. The first guy had a beard, but much more developed on the guy on the left. He also seemed to have a scar across one of his eyes but it is hard to tell from the angle I have. The motorcycle jacket he wore also had a depiction on a cartoon like devil on the back as well. The second one, well, I couldn’t really see the features on him that well. His hair was covered up by a light blue hoodie and his face was covered by the Jason Voorhees mask over his face. A gun was strapped to his back along with being armed with a knife that he was currently twiddling with. The last one was also very indistinguishable. A mask covered his eyes and only those, making me wonder how he was able to see. His hair his behind a gray hood much like the second guy, but the last one had what looked like bunny ears on the back. He was the one had the briefcase on his side. “Well, if that’s not me, Jon, and Luke then I don’t know.” Ryan commented. “And I recognize the Mario hat with one of the other Anthonys. Don’t know about the others though.” “It’s Max and Scott. Not Scotty, but Scott Robinson. They reveal it later on.” Evan confirmed. “How do you know?” “The author seems to refer to most people by their Gamertags. It just so happens during dialogue that the names Gassy and Sark are dropped.” “Worst part is the cliffhanger they leave you on at the end.” Jon spoke. “The narrator goes out to get air after what he’s seen when someone cocks a gun to his head and asks if he like what he saw. The author writes short chapters too.” “Damn. Who’s the main character modeled after? Do they give a name or anything?” “Yeah, its …” Jon paused, trying to think. “Evan, I don’t think the narrator said their name.” “Wait, really?!” He exclaimed. “Hold on. Third opinion. Ryan, read this and tell us if we know the narrator’s name.” “Okay. I don’t feel right about this, though. Reading something that I’m a character in. It’s like … breaking some invisible fourth wall.” “Fine, how about this.” Evan proposed. “Let’s keep this story between us, but we can decide to tell anyone who is a character as well.” “Deal.” Jon said a little too quickly. “Both you guys know I’m really bad at keeping secrets from Luke.” Ryan nodded, and started to read the chapter. Evan and Jon both moved around the table so they could reread the chapter again. However, nobody noticed the grinning Mike that stood watching from the bookshelf.

[samingtonwilson]

Loot - Part 5 - Jim Kirk

Loot masterlist

Word count: 2,519 Warnings: language, description of burn injuries

A/N: a long, but good chapter in my opinion. it’s my favorite part of this story so far. i knocked it out last night because i got so into it. this part’s a nice combination of reader’s past, reader x jim, and reader x issues. i think that’s why i love it. i originally wanted more to happen but it was getting too long so i chopped off the end and figured i’d save that for part 6. anyways tell me if you want to be tagged! ENJOY IT AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK

The walk from Jim’s quarters to yours normally took some time, more time than you had. The addition of the time it would take to dig the artifact from under a pile of your Starfleet-issued trousers and shirts, stuff the mysterious circular metal into your pocket, and leave the room pushed you well beyond the limit you had. Furthermore, you weren’t even dressed— it would take a collection of minutes to find your clothes, pull them on, and fashion your hair into something that looked less like a I-was-on-the-bottom-last-night-while-the-captain-fucked-me hairdo and more like a I-slept-like-a-flowery-celibate-angel hairdo so as to prevent more stares in the corridors than necessary.

You continued to lay in the bed helplessly, your arms at your sides and your eyes on the ceiling. You could hear Jim’s even breathing and felt his comfortable body heat as he lied on his side facing you. You traced the edges of the deck plating and tried to count the bolts holding the plates in place.

It was troublesome that you were so concerned of how Jim would feel had he awoken to an empty bed. You knew you should have been more concerned with Scotty roaming the halls with his right-hand short man, Keenser.

He’d been conducting his “investigations” during his days off for the last two weeks— he started with the bridge, the medbay, the commissary, and was slowly making his way through the many residential decks.

The effects of the nebula hadn’t worn off the ship— or, more honestly, the artifact’s effects. The artifact was, if anything, getting more volatile. Temperatures would increase twice a day— it would be sweltering in your room, yes, but the rest of the ship also experienced, what were called, thermostat malfunctions. In addition, you found areas of partially melted plates in the flooring and the red glow the artifact emitted was almost blinding— as Scotty hadn’t ventured down to the low deck of Excited Ensign Village quite yet, he was unaware of these two issues.

Last you checked, though, he was just on the cusp of approaching EEV and could end up there at any minute.

You could just imagine the whirring of his scanner as he roamed the halls with his concentration face— a frown, eyebrows together, forehead wrinkled up to the border of his hairline. You could also imagine the look on his face when he discovered the electromagnetic levels in your room. Your stomach flipped at the thought.

You heard Jim shift a bit and shut your eyes. You regulated your breathing so each breath was long and slow.

“I know you’re awake.”

You opened your left eye first, then your right eye. You turned your head so your cheek was pressed against the pillow and caught sight of the electric blue irises you’d been missing all night. Though it took more effort than you were comfortable with, you frowned at him. “How would you know that?”

“When you’re actually asleep, you snore,” he replied with a proud smirk. His voice was deliciously raspy, thick and gravelly with sleep.

“I do not!”

He seemed satisfied with that response. His smile forced you to fight off your own. “You do. Has no one ever told you?”

“No, you’re the only one mannerless enough.”

“I prefer ‘honest’ to ‘mannerless.’”

“I prefer you being quiet to you speaking.”

He chuckled, the vibrations causing a tightness in your chest. “They’re not loud snores. Just, you know, soft ones. Delicate ones.” He paused and wrinkled his nose. “But they are snores nonetheless.”

You knocked your knuckles against his chest, pulling with all your force when he held your wrist. “You’re the one that wants me to spend the night.”

He sighed as he intertwined your fingers, pressing his lips to the back of your hand. You could feel his smile against your skin. “I like your snores. They’re comforting— let me know you’re still here.”

“Why, you think I’m a flight risk?” You watched his eyes as they followed every minute motion of yours.

“You’re too much like me to not be a flight risk.” Despite the smile he still wore comfortably, you could tell he was being serious— you just wished he wasn’t.

“Not this again.”

You took your hand from his and ran your fingers through your messy hair as you rose from the bed. Your feet were bare and flat on the ground, your legs in desperate need of a good stretch. You shook your head once your undergarments were securely fastened. You didn’t dare look at him. “I’m not like you, Jim.”  

“It’s not a bad thing, being like me,” he said. He was watching you when you brought your eyes back to his, his back against the headboard and the comforter snuggly tucked a few inches below his bare chest. He didn’t look as defensive as you would’ve expected.

As you slipped the high-neck black shirt over your head, you smiled a little. You sat at the corner of the bed and folded your leg atop the mattress much plusher than that of your quarters. “I know it’s not. I would love to be like you.”

“Then accept it.”

“I can’t. I know the way I am— beyond the file you read and base your opinion on.” You shrugged. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“Then tell me,” he urged with his most persuasive smile. The perfect poster-boy smile, a smile that you were sure could win him ownership of a planet. “Convince me otherwise.”

“Jim, you have to report to the bridge soon—”

“Do you remember your mother?”

You tilted your head, he wasn’t going to give up.

Part of you wanted to divulge your entire life story if that meant he would continue to look at you in the way he did, the other part of you wanted to slap yourself upside the head for being in so deep after only four weeks.

It was hard for you to believe that you’d only known Jim for four weeks. You felt like you’d known his kindness, his friendship, his selflessness for years. Maybe it was just the sheer amount of time you spent with him, which totaled to more than a few hours everyday, or maybe it was how open he was.

He was generous with his thoughts and disclosed most to you before he fell asleep. He would tell you about his day, about the way Spock frustrated him with his green-blooded refusal to understand, even about the most measly things like the lines he encountered at  the commissary replicators. You couldn’t believe how much you loved hearing all of it. No matter the absolute banality of it all, you wanted him to tell you more and were so disappointed when he fell asleep in the middle of a sentence.

You pulled your knee to your chest, tugging the hem of your shirt. You placed your chin on your knee. You smiled at Jim— a sad smile that felt so inadequate in comparison to his persuasive beam. “I do remember her. She looked like me— or, rather, I look like her. Same nose, same eyes, same hair.” You placed your hand atop your knee. “She had this laugh— like, really loud and hiccupy.”

“Like yours?”

Before you knew it, your smile shifted from a sad one to one of nostalgia. Although your eyes were on him, you didn’t see Jim as you spoke. “Yeah, like mine. I don’t remember much more than that— just the way she looked and smiled, the way she sounded, the way she would sing me to sleep. When she did, it didn’t matter what was happening outside the door— I felt safe.”

You stopped speaking and felt the smile slip off your lips. You bit down on your bottom lip as a wave washed over your chest and made your lungs drown. There was a subtle yet overpowering ache in your ribs. Ribs that felt empty.

You cleared your throat after thirty seconds of silence— thirty seconds that felt like a lifetime. You forced the corners of your lips upwards. You offered that to Jim, who was staring at you with an expression filled with something you couldn’t decipher. “That’s enough of that.”

He opened his mouth to speak and you shook your head. “Go— get ready for your shift. You have a ship to captain.”

He appeared to comply to your suggestion, climbing out of bed and onto his feet. He took a few long strides to you, placing his hands on the edges of the mattress beside either of your legs. He leaned down so his lips were mere centimeters from yours.

You saw his pupils dilate just as your eyes fluttered shut, craning your neck to close the distance between the two of you.

He kissed you softly and slowly, one of his hands releasing the mattress and moving so his fingers could comb through your hair. He pulled your hair gently, tipping your head back to kiss you in a way that reached the tips of your toes.

When he broke the kiss and pulled back to look at you, it was only a matter of seconds before he kissed you again. This time, it was a much heavier kiss, filled with more fire than the last. Again, you felt it in your toes and felt it warm every other part of you.

As his lips moved with yours and his hand slid from your hair to slip under the hem of your shirt, you sighed. You reluctantly pulled back. You stared into ocean blue upon opening your eyes. Your voice was nearly inaudible as you spoke, “Go.”

Once your hair was neat, your boots were laced up, and the belt around the waistband of your trousers was tightened all the way, you retrieved your borrowed communicator that Jim insisted you use and polished off a replicated mug of coffee.

The hall was too bright and too full. The overhead lights and the volume of the voices around you reminded you of how little sleep you were getting. Guilt-induced insomnia cut down on the already limited hours of sleep Jim’s wanderings lips and hands allowed you.

Finally on your deck, you did your best to not make irritated facial expressions towards each ensign you passed. You pulled the cuffs of your sleeves to your fingertips and clicked your tongue absentmindedly.

Then, above every loud voice that had your eardrums ringing, you heard the whirring of a machine. The sound sent a panic through you that ran even deeper than every kiss from Jim.

Your palms itched as you turned in the direction of the sound. It didn’t sound too far off and, by the looks of the red-shirted man speaking in a shouted Scottish accent to a much shorter non-human, it wasn’t too far off. He stood in the corridor to your right, a few doors from the mouth of the hallway. He was clutching a machine you assumed was an older scanner than the smaller ones you were accustomed to seeing. It was trigger activated and featured white sensor, grey knobs, a screen, and a barrel red enough to match the Scotsman’s uniform.

You swallowed but your throat remained dry. You told yourself you needed to move, to carry your lead feet towards your quarters. You were only six doors away.

You cursed under your breath and broke out into a jog, wishing a sprint to your room wouldn’t have raised suspicion teamed with the undoubtedly terrified expression over your features.

You heard your heartbeat in your ears as you worked with the control panel, placing your free hand on the door in an attempt to detect the temperature. You felt only cool metal.

Your first try at the code was a failure, a beep greeting your already overwhelmed and overstimulated ears. You cursed again, trying once more and suppressing a cheer when the door slid open with a swish.

You raced inside and, with little regard for where it landed, tossed your communicator in the direction of the bed. You stepped into the closet when the doors finally opened, tearing through a pile of clothes that were warm enough to have just come from the dryer.

A loud clank rang through the room and you felt yourself breathe for the first time in minutes.

You picked up the artifact, hissing and dropping it when a sharp sting surged up your arm.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you repeated, picking it up once more and enduring the burning of your skin. You tried to ignore the smell that blew into your nose, your gag reflex suddenly active when your ability to ignore dwindled.

“Fuck!” you shouted, dropping it into one of the many black shirts and swaddling it.

You looked at your hand. Tears sprung into your eyes at the intense pain that would’ve had you bolted to the ground had the situation been less urgent.

You shook your head and used your uninjured hand to wipe under your eyes. You almost laughed as you muttered, “So much for that week-long clean bill of health.”

You brushed your hair back and, once at the door, used the heel of your unburnt hand to hit the control panel with almost enough force to break it.

You heard whirring and nothing else. The pain in your hand subsided and you used every bit of adrenaline in your system to carry yourself three doors down and to the connecting corridor at your left.

You felt as if you could still hear the whirring and searched for a door labeled with anything other than a residence room number.

Success came to you moments later when you spotted a supply closet, slamming the heel of the same hand and cursing out loud when you felt the fabric in your other hand grow hotter. You tossed the balled up shirt in and let the door shut, taking note of the borrowed clothing’s precise location.

You stepped back in the dark, cramped room until your back hit the door. You felt the full impact of your hand’s burning then, a few tears leaving your eyes as you stared at the wide half-moon burn against four of your fingers and the lagoon-shaped burn at the center of your palm. It looked and felt as if every nerve in your hand was raw and exposed.

You leaned against the door and slid down. You stared ahead of you, watching a hole burn itself into the fabric of the shirt you were meant to return. The sight of that— the charring fabric which curled in on itself and splintered away with a glowing orange border that quickly faded— broke something in your chest.

Every bit of fear, anxiety, pain, and utter despair you’d never allowed yourself to fully feel since childhood poured from your eyes. You bit down on the sore heel of your healthy hand and whimpered into it as more sobs tore through you.

It continued that way for several cycles. You had to let the wave pass, no matter how long it took.

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